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WITCHFUKKER
Tapestry Of Unspeakable Horrors

De Pankraker (2024)
Rating: 8/10

Recorded in the summer of 2023, Tapestry Of Unspeakable Horrors is the debut full-length opus from this Netherlands mob which obviously relies on alcohol and horror to function. This is some nasty black-thrash that nods towards the rawer side of the South American scene but with some intriguing distraction hidden within.

On first listen this nine-track affair smothered me with its cavernous hostility, acting almost as a blanket of grey, wiry gauze. However, as I explored further – with some trepidation might I add – I latched on to those previously missed doomier sections such as on ‘Nymphomania’, but even then it’s delivered with such a barbaric and hellish force that one can be forgiven for choking on the fetid black thrash fumes early on.

Believe me, this is an unsettling and unrelenting attack on the senses as ‘Pain Beyond Death’ scorches into earshot as a tirade of cosmic junk and abrasive horror peppered with banshee wails and axe work that scrapes the inner walls of your cranium. With ‘Sordid Aggression’ the unruly clan exhibits some terrifying speed metal lashing as cymbals shatter like layers of black ice as intensely evil riffs blaze like fizzing meteors, in turn showering with acid. This is genuinely wicked speed metal that belongs holed up in the underground, whizzing through the grey gloom like some blood-sucking parasite high on death.

There’s no real let up from the malevolent maelstroms spat out, but you will appreciate those fleeting moments of more eerily thoughtful terror as showcased on ‘Death Komes Ripping Through’ and ‘Abyssal Autosarkophagy’ where authentic doominess squirms from the wiry nest. Of the more hellish torrents, ‘March Of The Metal SS’ with its screams of “Die! Die! Die!” is probably the band at its most extreme, although ‘Descension Into Horrid Delirium’ is just as hateful.

There were numerous times throughout this experience that I felt like I was listening to some obscure early 90s black metal demo, crafted amidst the wreckage of some vandalised church. Witchfukker is such an evil and spiteful force to attempt to handle, so conniving in its construction that by the time the 43 minutes is up your eyes and ears have been raked by thorns, your flesh stripped and the remaining exposed sinews, ligaments and muscle burned with piles of salt.

Tapestry Of Unspeakable Horrors is a torturous debut, but one which portrays and then relays the true evil essence of the darker side of extreme metal, although to some extent, and to make this release feel even more “cult”, I hope Witchfukker disappears up its own sulphuric orifice never to return.

Neil Arnold

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