Witchaven-Terrorstorm

Metalhit
2011

This is actually a re-issue of an album that originally came out in early 2010. This version comes with new cover art. Formed in 2006 South California's Witchaven are old style thrash with some tinges of early black and death metal tossed in. The most obvious influences are Show no mercy-era Slayer and Kreator around 86-86. Almost every song starts with some tightly wound swirling riffs with the drums pumping hard to keep up. Instead of Tom Araya type growls we get an approach that's closer to several German thrash bands back in the early days of the style. The whole album reaches back to about 84-85 and doesn't try to go beyond that time period. The energy level is high and that helps to a certain extent. The problem here is that most of the songs were around two or three minutes yet I still felt myself growing bored all too quickly. I have been listening to old style thrash well since it was new and not old. So for a band playing this style to really impress me and draw me in they are going to have reach out a little and do more than just re-hash their influences. This is a little better than a lot of bands playing retro-thrash these days. I could imagine them possible being pretty entertaining live due to the energy. Yet on "Terrorstorm" they are above average, but a bit too routine to really make an impression. You have heard this before many times over before.