ATOMIC WITCH

Going righteously berserk at the exact point where thrash and death metal meet, ATOMIC WITCH are the living embodiment of face-ripping metal insanity. The band's debut album "Crypt of Sleepless Malice" snuck out in 2022, causing mild ripples of positive disgust among those in the know. Three years on, the Cleveland clobberers have delivered the follow-up, and it would be a grotesque injustice if "Death Etiquette" doesn't kick up a much bigger stink than its predecessor. ATOMIC WITCH are experts at delivering metal that fulfils all the primitive desires of the faithful, from the anthemic, high-energy precision of thrash, to the blastbeat-driven violence of death metal and several points in between. What sets them apart? The songs on "Death Etiquette" are delivered with breathtaking levels of speed, aggression and righteous venom. Strap yourselves in.

Getting straight to the point, ATOMIC WITCH begin their second LP with a two-minute barnburner that leaves no room for misinterpretation. "Morgue Rat" is a furious and filthy elbow to the bridge of the nose. It reeks of verminous discharge as our heroes race each other to the brutal, bitter end. It is, more importantly, insanely exciting. Beware holding a hot cup of coffee while listening because "Morgue Rat" may compel you, instinctively, to smash it into the nearest wall. Or your own face.

"Death Etiquette" only lasts for 27 minutes, but every last one of them is enacted in the same vicious fashion. "Of Flesh & Chrome" is a versatile, prog-thrash rager, with vocalist Gorg The Impaler (not, let's assume, his real name) in helium-huffing demon mode, and riffs that lean towards the duality of lethal simplicity and deceptive complexity, just as Chuck Schuldiner intended. "Worms & Dirt" casts a fetid shadow over mid-tempo malevolence, and winds up sounding like a distant cousin to REVOCATION's elite-level death but possessed by the spirit of the Germans circa 1985 (and SLAYER). Both "Dream Rot" and "Sabbath Breaker" endeavor to turn the intensity up even further, the former with an old-school death metal fixation, and the latter with a mixture of absurd technicality and grim, grinding violence.

ATOMIC WITCH reach an apex of white-knuckle madness on "Death Edging", which stirs their sound into a blazing maelstrom of evil ideas, with ruthlessly precise transitions, poisonous discord and a palpable sense that this could spin out of control at any moment. It never does, and both "Skelecidal" (a simple-minded, death/thrash apocalypse) and "Vicious Mistress" (a swaggering, thuggish and fiendishly complex affair) reinforce the same points with even more squint-eyed dogmatism.

Not every metal band can rip this hard and with this much imagination. ATOMIC WITCH are maniacs on a mission. No compromise. No brakes. This is wild.