Burning Witches: The Witch of the North

If you watch enough heavy metal-related content on YouTube, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered Burning Witches. For me, it started with watching the band’s live cover of Dio’s “Holy Diver,� which led to several algorithm-inspired suggestions for even more videos, interviews, and so on. I found myself grooving along with the band even though I never took the leap away from YouTube so I could listen to a whole album.

That changed with The Witch of the North, the band’s fourth full-length album. Even though I still watch music videos on YouTube, it was kind of nice to just sit back and listen to this album without being distracted by visuals. What I discovered is that this album takes the band in new, more aggressive and slightly darker, directions than their previous work. It helps that band’s relatively new singer Laura Guldemond has been around long enough that the band is, presumably, comfortable with her and are finding ways to work with her vocal strengths. She has a strong voice, one that can be rough and melodic and theatrical in effective ways. I especially liked her performance on Savatage’s “Hall of the Mountain King.� I’m not necessarily fond of covers like this, but this one succeeds so well because Guldemond and the rest of the band bring so much passion and drama to it.

A similar passion drives the band’s original songs as well. What I like the most is the way the band draws on elements of classic heavy metal to build most of their songs. This is a band that loves classic metal and it’s fun to listen to the little ways they gesture toward bands like Dio or Iron Maiden or even Judas Priest in everything they are doing. I swear there’s even a little Metal Church on some of these tracks. If you listen, you’ll hear other bands. You could even make a game out of it with your friends. But the point is not to trace out all the influences. Instead, just sit back and enjoy what Burning Witches does with all of them.

Some fans will notice that the band is pushing themselves a little more on this album than they have in the past. There’s a slightly darker quality to this album, not to mention an occasional break from the mid-tempo romps we’re used to. As I noted above, I also find Guldemond’s vocals more comfortable and confident. She has a nice vocal range, but she also has a rough edge that suits this band really well. You can hear that edge in several places, but I was especially fond of “The Witch of the North,� “Nine Worlds,� and “Thrall.�

Overall, this is a good album that’s worth exploring. It will be interesting to see where Burning Witches take things after this. They seem poised on the edge of breaking into something much bigger.

Track Listing:
1. Winter’s Wrath
2. The Witch of the North
3. Tainted Ritual
4. We Stand as One
5. Flight of the Valkyries
6. The Circle of Five
7. Lady of the Woods
8. Thrall
9. Omen
10. Nine Worlds
11. For Eternity
12. Dragon’s Dream
13. Eternal Frost
14. Hall of the Mountain King

Added: September 13th 2021
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 804
Language: english

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