Raise hell, get seduced by the dark and shun the light – three things WITCHGRAVE make us want to do in 2013. The young Swedes have just vomited forth their first full-length and it’s not been off the Iron Fist stereo since it landed. Hearing everything from Venom to the blues in there we had to find out more and sent DAVE SHERWOOD to the cabin in the woods to infiltrate the coven.

“Vomit on the fucking priest!” That’s probably the best greeting we’ve had from a band this issue. And it’s no surprise that it comes in email form from Swedish youth gone wild, Witchgrave. Their self-titled full-length arrived in our postboxes like an early “fukk you” from Santa just before Christmas. Fitting since we’ve not exactly been the best-behaved children this year. The album, which contains juvenile blasts of thrashing fury such as ‘Seduced By The Dark’, ‘Raise Hell’ and ‘The Virgin Must Die’, is just the dose of merciless, Venom-ous, old metal brilliance we needed to end the old year, and ring in the new. Witchgrave are inhuman, they’re forged from the molten wax of someone’s complete Neat Records collection which has been burned (and died). A little bit of … Read More