Album Review: Hellwitch - Annihilational Intercention
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
So, if anyone has a great knowledge of the Florida underground death/thrash scene, then please step right up and inform me more about it please, because my memory is somewhat lacking in large chunks, as I had never heard of Hellwitch before I got sent their new music to review from The Razors Edge HQ, but I genuinely believe that I’ve missed out on some crazy music over the years.
Originally formed in October 1984, founder member Patrick Ranieri is still at the forefront, pushing the band into new territories and releasing songs that are more intense than anything they’ve done before, with some bombastic riffing from Ranieri and fellow guitarist J.P. Brown, ably assisted by some of the most extreme drumming they’ve ever done from Brian Wilson.
It has been fourteen long years since their last release, but with 'Annihilation Intercention' they have nine tracks of immense fury that it’s going to feel like somebody is stamping on your head before they rip out your insides, and then walk off smiling at the bloody corpse. From the opening salvo of 'Solipsistic Immortality' all the way through to final track 'Torture Chamber' it is brutal, frantic, and quite frankly, bloody brilliant stuff.
The new music is all about speed, technicality and originality, with the best example of this being the song 'Hellwitch', which has an introductory orchestral piece called 'Sorcerous Imminence' but some parts of the song were written by Ranieri in 1985, and some in 2021, and they’ve been blended together, for the first time on a Hellwitch record, to create a genuinely cracking piece of music.
As previously mentioned, there are some songs like 'Delegated Disruption' that have riffs that are so bombastic that you’ll need to clean your ears out afterwards as you won’t quite believe what you are listening to, but the pace at which Ranieri and J.P. Brown play is frightening. 'Megalopalyptic Confine' and 'Epochal Cessation' are other fine examples of their musicianship, and of course kudos goes out to drummer Brian Wilson, as his pace is relentless and he must have calves of steel with all that double bass action going on.
So if you have a penchant for fast, aggressive, brutal death/thrash metal with maniacal vocals like an axe murderer at the height of his slaughter, then slap this on and enjoy!
