Yeah, bien heavy et accrocheur.
Avec les petites mélodies à la King Diamond en prime.
Une interview de D'Angelo pour la route :
Nothing ever goes as planned, at least in the case of WITCHERY’s bid for world domination. Between 1998 and 1999 the band issued two full length albums – Restless And Dead (’98) and Dead, Hot And Ready (’99) – and the Witchburner EP, with the bold intention of releasing material at least once a year. Both guitarist Patrik Jensen (THE HAUNTED) and bassist Sharlee D’Angelo (ARCH ENEMY, SPIRUTUAL BEGGARS) went on record with BW&BK citing ‘70s KISS as an inspiration for Witchery’s vision, claiming they wanted to go back to the days of making music for the sheer pleasure of doing so, in spite of being busy with their respective bands. Those plans fell apart following their 2001 album Symphony For The Devil, as both Jensen and D’Angelo found themselves with less time to play around. The Haunted and Arch Enemy had become full time jobs; if they weren’t in the studio they were out on the road. It's a routine that still holds true today.
“Absolutely nothing has changed,” laughs D’Angelo, settling in to discuss Witchery’s first album in four years, Witchkrieg. “A few more grey hairs but that’s about it. Throw into that the fact that our drummer Martin (Axenrot / Opeth) has been busy touring as well and there’s been no time to get together. The big problem was being able to get everybody in one place at the same time, which was the same problem we had for the last album (Don’t Fear The Reaper in 2006). At some point when Jensen was home he decided that we had to get the ball rolling, so this was the first time we did what I guess everybody does nowadays and recorded the parts one at a time. That was pretty weird for us, but that’s how things got rolling for this album.”
With four years between Witchkrieg and Don’t Fear The Reaper, and a five year space between that record and Symphony For The Devil, it almost seems as if it would be better to lay the band to rest that try and yank an album out of the band members’ rare downtime. D’Angelo says that’s never been a consideration.
“The subject has never come up. It’s been more of a question of when we were going to do it. We have the option of saying ‘Scrap it,’ of course, but I guess it’s just a question of priorities. If you can find a little time off, what do you want to do with it? You can spend it gardening, but I feel sorry for any garden that has to deal with me (laughs), so my only way out is more metal.”
Witchkrieg is a much darker album compared to the band’s previous efforts, a change initially attributed to Devian vocalist Legion (Erik Hagsted) replacing original singer Toxine. The band’s thrash roots are still alive and well, but their familiar underlying rock n’ roll vibe has grown fangs. It turns out Legion was only one element leading to Witchery’s revamped sound.
“It is different,” D’Angelo agrees, “and I think that’s because it’s more or less Jensen all the way through. He’s responsible for 80% to 90% of everything we’ve done before, but these new songs are totally all him. He sat and recorded everything at home, and since we didn’t have that much time to actually get together and rehearse and do the normal thing we agreed on a few changes in song arrangements, but it was mostly Jensen’s stuff. We did get together in 2007 and rehearse some of the stuff, but everything is based on the demos that Jensen did because we didn’t have the chance to get together and fuck the songs up in rehearsal. So, the previous ever-present element of rock n’ roll is somewhat elusive on this record.”
“The last album was sort of a continuation of the Symphony For The Devil album because it features the same writing style and the same line-up. This time it was a completely different method of working. Okay, it was more or less the same thing for me, but I did miss having that eye contact with Martin, which is how we’ve come up with ideas in the past. I recorded his drums so we could discuss the arrangements, and that gave me ideas for bass lines in my head. It was sort of the same thing but it went down in a different way.”
With Jensen left holding the reins it’s fair to assume the new Witchery material would end up wearing The Haunted’s sound to some degree.
“There was actually one song, which didn’t end up on the album but might surface as a bonus track. Not a bad song, but very older era Haunted. We’ve had stuff like that before but then we made sure we pulverized it into a Witchery song (laughs). On some of the demos Jensen had to put down the bass tracks as well, and on that one song he put down something that was completely Jonas Björler. With that bass line it sounded quite a bit like The Haunted, so I asked him about doing things myself in a different way.”
Toxine’s departure – due to a lack of time and not a falling out – will be a disappointment for some Witchery fans, but Legion does himself and the band proud on Witchkrieg. D’Angelo reveals the list of potential replacements for Toxine was very, very short.
“Erik was the only name that ever came up. He was our first choice so we called him, and he said yes. We never even had to think about anybody else. He just came in, young, dumb and full of metal (laughs). He came in with loads of enthusiasm, and there wasn’t any hesitation on his part at all. There’s nothing beyond a second take on this record. Most of it was first take, go in and change a little bit here and there, and then take care of whatever backing vocal overdubs that needed to be done. Once a song was done Erik was already looking at doing the next one. We’d ask him if he wanted to at least listen to the track he’d done and he’s like, ‘Fuck no, let’s keep going…’ (laughs).”
“Things went very quickly with the vocals, whereas everything else with this band seems to go slowly, or at least with time in between. When it came to doing the vocals, those were some true Witchery moments (laughs). Erik is a very easygoing person as well, his timing is impeccable, and he’s got a feel for the music. One thing that we knew is he’s a great frontman. Once he hears double kick drums and guitars there’s no stopping the guy.”
Any discussion of Witchery hitting the road for more than a few shows at a time is usually concluded with the word “maybe” due to the band members’ commitments to their main bands. Not an ideal situation for a new singer hoping to get out and support his latest work, but according to D’Angelo it’s unlikely Legion will bitch too loudly about Witchery’s live schedule, or lack of it.
“The band that he was with, Devian, that’s more or less dormant at the moment. I don’t think he’s doing very much with them, but he’s extremely busy these days because he’s got his own tattoo parlor. He’s booked solid, and because it’s his main thing I think that makes Witchery even more fun for him. He’s probably the busiest person in the band so we’re actually kind of forced to ask him if we can book gigs at these and those times, and he told us ‘It doesn’t really matter because I’m fucked anyway…’ (laughs). Whatever we do he’s going to have to postpone and cancel things in order for it to happen, but he seems to be okay with that.”
In closing, D’Angelo comments on the Witchkrieg album cover, which is bound to have some people grumbling in their beer thanks to its blatant take on Nazi propaganda. All tongue-in-cheek, which has been par for the Witchery course since Day 1.
“We knew people were going to make that connection, but it’s not even a German uniform, it’s Russian. Anybody who deals in the imagery of war, the best thing to do is put a big fucking swastika on the front cover because anything you do after than will be child’s play (laughs).”
Même si du coup la voix n'est pas aussi particulière que le chanteur d'avant
