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WITCHRIST
Vrita EP

Iron Bonehead Productions (2014)
Rating: 8/10

Witchrist is a band hailing from Auckland in New Zealand and which formed back in 2007 from the ashes of Bloodquest. Vritra is the new EP which follows on from 2012’s sophomore effort The Grand Tormentor.

Featuring KzR from Bölzer on vocals, and with names such as Abomination (guitar), Occultorture (guitar), Atrociter (bass) and Necrobastard (drums), you’d be thinking that Witchcrist was some kind of hellish black or death metal abomination – and you’d be right on both counts.

For true old school savagery then look no further than this barbaric three-track assault on the ears best described as ten minutes of flaming, billowing, blackened occult metal. With its fusty, suffocating blend of deep, guttural and certainly lo-fi death metal and hints of bellowing black metal blasphemy, the last full-length opus from the guys was one that had a lot of tongues wagging on the underground and so it’s nice to hear that the band has continued on its despicable path.

Doom-laden and fiery throughout, Vritra is the sort of underground pummelling one would expect from a South American troupe of metal butchers intent on unleashing their demonic fury, and so it’s great that this New Zealand-based outfit can spew out similar belches of disgust. This is incredibly eerie, moody and malevolent stuff that fuses some truly remarkable passages of simmering arrogance and occasional flirtations with musty speed.

There is not one pinch of subtlety with Vritra which opens with the almighty slurs of ‘Haruspex’; a rusty, choking construction of wretchedness built upon slow, lumbering guitars and menacing percussion before its take on speed introduces us to a slimy mass of oozing organs and rancid spawn. It sounds as if it was created back in the early 90s, born from some horrendous fusing of bile and blood – the result being a clambering, seething madness of utter gloom. This is dirge metal, incorporating a stuffy punk mentality that bubbles under the surface of oil and in turn forming a sound that lurks between original Obituary and Onslaught’s satanic punk opus Power From Hell (1985).

‘Transmuting Rituals’ is coughed up like some great ball of blood-coated phlegm before the five-piece puts its foot down and speeds up the graven smoke to exhibit a deep, corning mass of intestinal butchery and hellish malformation. The vocals this time round are even deeper and ghoulish but merely add as an extra layer of crust within this under two-minute manifestation. We’re then treading the black, gravy-like waters of ‘’The Golden Ascent’ which is just an impure, clot-clogged conjuration with a foundation of doomy drums and silted bass that threads its way through the mire of pitch guitar murmurs.

Indeed, the whole sound of Witchrist is one that aches down to its core and even when the pace is picked up one gets the impression of an entity just too bloated on flesh to continue for more than a few minutes, and so we’re treated to that abysmal Bolt Thrower-styled juggernaut of rust and ash which smears itself over the ears, eyes and mouth with suffocating quality. It’s not fun, but we have no choice to be consumed in sludgy death metal repulsion.

Neil Arnold

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