Hailing from Portugal with their debut album Heretic Rapture, Witchbreed claim on their blurb to have produced “one of the heaviest and darkest metal records ever recorded with female vocals.” This is a rather bold declaration, and one which is blown to pieces by anyone who’s heard Arch Enemy, or, as I have, had the joy of catching Holy Moses live.
Whilst some of the combinations of staccato guitars and pummelling rhythm section does have a blackened and symphonic touch that reminded me of Opeth, the clean and clear vocals of singer Ruby puts this album into competition with the likes of Nightwish rather then into the realms of extreme metal. Having got past this somewhat inaccurate boast, it’s time to judge the band on their music.
Opener ‘Atheos’ sounds like the recording the band should come on to, a simple lyric free piece where the vocalist gets to showcase her considerable talents with a haunting series of scales over an ambient background of keyboards and guitars, before firing into the fast, technical riffs of ‘Symphony for the Fallen’. Whilst punctuated, like many of the tracks on the album, by growling male vocals, it sets up the cinematic style of the album with echoed and layered lead vocals, complementing and playing against the almost progressive guitar work and subtle yet swirling keyboards.
Mythic themes of angels and phantoms run through the lyrics of the entire album, complementing the band’s playing creating cinematic tracks like ‘Medeusa’, opening as it does with a chugging bass over monastic chants before building up into an epic number. Cunningly the band bring it to a close at four and a half minutes rather then let it sprawl into the rambling and overindulgent piece it could have so easily grown into. This temptation to drag out tracks beyond their welcome is avoided throughout, the songs coming in at under the five minute mark where lazier production could have let the musicians noodle away endlessly.
With a good live show, and the addition of a live keyboard player to complement the band’s line up (and the right publicity push), Witchbreed could well start to appear on festival stages throughout Europe.
http://www.myspace.com/witchbreed
