It’s unusual for me to be drifting into a venue I’ve not encountered before, and so for the first gig of the year on a mildly moist Saturday, I ventured out of my comfort zone and into the second city.
Burning Witches have been around for some time, presumably due to the enlightenment, but only for 11 years have the all female band from Switzerland been making music. At first listen my impression was they’re of an ilk in sound to that of early Priest, floating around the Painkiller era, and let’s face it, that’s never going to be a bad thing! However, before them was the small matter of Hammer King!
Kicking off at 6.30pm to a slowly assembling crowd who were probably as surprised as I was that everything was roughly an hour earlier than the norm, it was clear from their attire they were not kidding about attempting to Make Metal Royal again, complete with quite the stage setup and a hammer which, by the size of it if dropped on someone’s foot with a lisp, would leave it qwite thor! Although… I don’t really encounter many feet with lisps! Anyway… moving on! Hailing from around Ramstein, Southern Germany (or Saint-Tropez if you believe the rumours!) their sound was loud and proud, basic and
effective, like… well.. a hammer! 10 songs I think I counted, interspersed with quite technical solos, audience interactions, and gesticulations with the aforementioned bludgeon. They’ve had a couple of top 10 albums in European countries and I can see why. “Kingdom of Hammer of Kings” is everything they should be about, and would go nicely as a bridge between Saxon’s “Crusader”, and Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, with added Manowar pomp to boot! “Pariah Is My Name” felt perhaps the best performed and composed, with a cleanness of delivery for which the sound engineer should get a shout out for too. A cover of “Danger Zone” was unexpected fun, and went down well to an audience mostly consisting of guys around their mid 40s. Titan Fox, the vocalist even hit some serious high notes throughout the show, and impressed throughout both as singer and presenter. “Hammerschlag” feels the fastest and angriest of their set, but the drumbeat has been relentless throughout. Would I see them again? Absolutely!
So, what of the Burning Witches? Presumably having been weighed against suitable ducks in order to establish authenticity, they land stage side at around 7.50pm. The band actually isn’t named after the activity alluded to earlier, but instead the “burning” is like desire and intensity, passion if you will, and the coven they’ve formed essentially formed as a band of ladies together. A Quorum of Queens perhaps? I’ve seen a few covers by them but nothing else save for one youtube video which had hints of Priest about it.
From the get go you could see that they knew what they were doing! I’d genuinely say they need a bigger venue that the Asylum. While their setlist claimed 18 songs, there were really only 14, the others consisting of intros and instrumental bridges, and it needs saying that “Hexenhamer” was absolutely the star of the show in terms of performance. Feeling faster and heavier than what had come before I was unsurprised to see it’s also an album title by them. Confidence oozed from both the vocal and instruments, complimented by a good stage presence from everyone involved. “Release Me” was almost on a par.. sounding like it should be the follow up to Maiden’s “Children of the Damned!” in the same way as “A Light in the Black” follows “Stargazer” and if you don’t know the artist’s name for those you’re probably in the wrong place!
Witches’ guitarist with the unlikely name Courtney Cox is easily on a par with still rising Sophie Lloyd and would give her a decent run for her money on a Top Female Guitarist
contest, and put in a serious performance all night. To be fair, the whole performance was indeed that, a performance, and myself and my accomplice for the evening agreed we’d see both bands again. Actually, I was wrong in my assessment of the fastest song of the night. A quick glance at my notes says that honour lands on “Black Widow”, which is very aforementioned “Painkiller” era in vocal too. Curiously, “Lucid Nightmare” felt very different to the album version here, composed and rounded and more accessible but still with fast accurate solos.
Their final track, eponymously named, was also clean sounding from throughout and the vocal from start to finish was pleasingly clear.. something I moan about at almost every concert I wind up at if it’s not absolutely bang on! The set was varied enough to keep the audiences attention and the music easily was the focal point, rather than the ladies’ attire, which is often the case. The bass and lead guitar got to play with each other on this, and it’s done well, and seems to show like a macrocosm of how the band work and interact together and the chemistry which blends them together so well.
There was much to like about the evening as a whole. Every Witches track was controlled and performed with suitable aplomb, and while there were no especially memorable individual moments, the concert stands proudly as also something it’s extremely hard to pinpoint any bad spell either, presumably inferring they’re white witches! Songs like “Inquisition” kept the Halfordesque sound present, and if you’re using that as a baseline it’s hard really to go wrong. The only real negative was the fact that everything was done by 9pm! Very strange for a weekend gig.
As noted, both bands deserved a bigger venue. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if that happens anytime soon and if so, either/or will be likely encountering me again.