Midnight
Let There Be Witchery
Metal Blade Records
Released: March 4, 2022
The time is right for Midnight to spring forth and unleash a new record, titled, Let There Be Witchery, out March 4th on Metal Blade Records.
Filthy, belligerent and obnoxious, Midnight make music to start fights to. Raw, in your face blend of traditional heavy metal, NWOBHM and black metal, Midnight continue to create viscous and volatile, nasty music – and we can’t get enough! Midnight is the brainchild of one man, Athenar, who has been at the helm of the project since 2003. Now, with their fifth full-length album, Let There Be Witchery, Midnight look to further themselves while using the same tried and tested potion of auditable violence and filth. Lovely, lovely filth.
Channeling the spirit of Motorhead, and with harmonies, leads and time changes that would make Lemmy proud, the aggression of Hellhammer, poured over the mythos of traditional heavy metal like gravy over meatballs. Let There Be Witchery is equal part venomous spite and headbanging melodies and groove. Yet, there’s still so much more here. A heavy dose of angsty punk rock, sleazy lyrics and song titles, loud and nasty and never relenting balls-to-the-wall metal.
See Also: Sanhedrin “Lights On” Review
The profoundly sinister d-beat romp Telepathic Nightmare kicks things off unpleasantly, setting the stage for the rest of the way. Highlights include Nocturnal Molestation, which besides the nasty song moniker, is one hell of a tune. That Motorhead harmony I mentioned earlier oozes from every note on this one, in a glorious haze of molten leather jackets and spent motorbike fumes. On Let There Be Sodomy, which features a catchy and fun chorus that you’ll maybe consider refraining from singing along to if riding a city bus (or if could nab you a hot date, maybe), is an absolute monster. Snake Obsession puts forward an old school punk rock romp, that flows into a viscous all-out speed metal bombardment. Final number, Szex Witchery, pumps up the Motorhead meter some more, crafting something that I am sure Lemmy would have chugged his Jack Daniels to.
“I never really sit down and say, ‘okay, now I’ll start to make up some jams’ – they just get stockpiled,” says Athenar. “The tunes on this one started coming around early 2019. Writing catchily (sic) comes naturally to me – if something is difficult for me, I just don’t do it, so it has to be natural. I’m a person that says if at first you don’t succeed, fuck it. But yeah, catchiness and hooks are important to me.”
“All the solos have been spontaneous since the start of the band. I just give it a shot, then maybe stumble across a theme, then try it again and again and again. That’s the way I like solos to sound, spontaneous yet have some sorta map in there to follow, kind of like a methed up lunatic driving a car missing a wheel at top speed down a curvy highway on his way to get more meth. It’s not gonna be pretty, but you know he’ll find a way to get there somehow.”
Copies of Midnight’s Let There Be Witchery can be obtained through the Metal Blade Records website now – in limited and highly sought after quantities. Be quick, or be dead!
For Fans Of: Venom, Motorhead, Hellhammer
Track Listing:
01. Telepathic Nightmare
02. Frothing Foulness
03. In Sinful Secrecy
04. Nocturnal Molestation
05. More Torment
06. Let There Be Sodomy
07. Devil Virgin
08. Snake Obsession
09. Villainy Wretched Villainy
10. Szex Witchery
Pros & Cons
- Nasty yet melodic
- Full-throttle and unrelenting
- Could use a little more variety
