Swedish blackened thrash metal masters Witchery have unveiled a video for their latest single, “Witching Hour,” which was directed by Martin Hultgren / Gryt Film AB, with post-production handled by Eduardo Hidalgo / E2h Design Studio & Maciej Pieloch / MPieloch.com. The song is the opening track taken from the group’s upcoming album, Nightside, which is scheduled to arrive on July 22nd via Century Media Records.
Guitarist Jensen comments:
“And so, the ‘Witching Hour’ has finally arrived…This, the opening track of the new concept album “Nightside”, kicks off a story of unreal nightmares, demonic possession, inquisitional witches’ trials and then dives into the really dark stuff, haha. First try for us to create a concept album and we are very happy with how it turned out. We worked hard at creating songs that followed the dramaturgy of the story (which was more work than we ever realized, but a challenged we accepted and overcame!). We’re pretty sure that ‘Popecrusher’, and now ‘Witching Hour’, will pique your interest in hearing the full story of “Nightside”!”
He adds:
“I started to write this album without any general direction of idea in mind, but somewhere in the middle of the writing process I remembered that I’ve always wanted to do a concept album, so I decided to give it a shot. Little did I know that writing a concept album puts a lot more pressure on each and every song turning out great. This might seem a norm (and I guess it is in some way) but usually you write 12-14 songs and choose the songs that turned out the best after they’ve been mixed and mastered. Sometimes even what you thought was going to be the first song on the album gets pushed to somewhere else because another track turned out sounding more like an opening track. Also, out of those 12-14 songs you can choose to keep a few a bonus tracks. With a theme album, songs can’t swap places. The story needs to work (no one wants to do a new “The Elder”!), so the opening track really needs to hold up as an opening track etc., thus the extra pressure of “no surprises” after its all recorded. The album tells a story of demonic nightmares, unexplainable pregnancy, witch trails and an escape from the Old Country to the colonies in the west and what happens once the child is born. Guests on this album is, for starters, our permanent guest of honor Hank Shermann, but also guest solos by Maciek Ofstad of Kvelertak and Simon Johansson of Wolf (also the studio owner of SolnaStudio where we recorded the album. We also had the honor of having Jeff Walker of Carcass do guest vocals on the song “A Forest of Burning Coffins”. All in all, we are very happy with how the album turned out and with again thrilled over Daniel Bergstrand’s killer production…”
Watch the clip below and pre-order the album here:
Track List:
01) Witching Hour
02) Don’t Burn the Witch
03) Storm of the Unborn
04) Er steht in Flammen
05) Popecrusher
06) Left Hand March
07) Under the Altar
08) Churchburner
09) Crucifix and Candle
10) A Forest of Burning Coffins
11) Nightside
