Witchery
Encyclopedia
Witchery is a Swedish
thrash
/speed
metal band, formed by former members of Satanic Slaughter
in 1997. The current lineup consists of vocalist Emperor Magus Caligula
(Dark Funeral
), ex-Devian
), guitarists Patrik Jensen
and Rickard "Richard Corpse" Rimfält, bassist Sharlee D'Angelo
, and drummer Martin Axenrot
. To date, the band has released five full-length studio albums and an EP.
), Rickard "Rille" Rimfält (aka Richard Corpse), vocalist Toxine (Seance, Total Death), drummer Mique (Seance), and bassist Sharlee D'Angelo
(Arch Enemy
, Mercyful Fate
) on board. In 1998 they recorded and released their debut Restless And Dead
through Necropolis Records
, the name of the album being a pun on Restless and Wild an album by German heavy metal icons Accept
. Witchery quickly gathered a cult following with their combination of serious, technical thrash metal and all topics "dead". Their strictly tongue-in-cheek humour, often involving executions, murder, necrophilia, resurrections and other morbid topics can be spotted in song titles and album names as well as in their very own mascot - an animated skeleton called "Ben Wrangle", the name being a pun on the Swedish word "benrangel" which best translates into "skellington".
Witchery also have their own heavy metal salute, a derivation from the original Sign of the horns "Evil Eye" ward popularized by Ronnie James Dio
called "The W". For properly "doing the W" only the ring finger and thumb of the performing hand touch. Rumour has it that the salute came into being as somebody in the band tried to do the metal salute with a cigarette between his fingers. This "W" is not to be confused with the Shocker
.
Later that year, Witchery released the Witchburner minialbum. The EP featured three originals and four cover songs bearing witness to the individual musicians’ influences, among them Accept
, W.A.S.P and Judas Priest
. The track "Witchburner" being the first ever recording of the band and like the other two original tracks "The Executioner" and "The Howling" only available on this EP so far. In 1999, Witchery embarked on a U.S. tour with Emperor
and Borknagar
. Their second full-length album Dead, Hot and Ready was unleashed soon thereafter, a six-week European tour following in 2000. Symphony For The Devil
, the band’s 2001 release, was recorded at Berno Studio (Amon Amarth
, Dark Funeral
) in Malmö, Sweden with new drummer, Martin “Axe” Axenrot
(Bloodbath
, Opeth
). Witchery returned to tour North America later that year with The Haunted
. Returning to Berno Studios in 2004, the band recorded Don’t Fear The Reaper
, this time entrusting mixing duties to Tue Madsen and his Antfarm Studios (The Haunted, Heaven Shall Burn
, Himsa). After recording the album, the band signed a worldwide record deal with Century Media.
In April 2010 accomplished black metal singer Legion (Erik Hagsted, ex-Marduk, ex-Devian) joined the band to replace Toxine who had to drop out because of schedule issues. According to the press release the split happened by mutual agreement. The new album entitled "Witchkrieg" (a play on the word Blitzkrieg
) has been announced for July 2010. On the 19th of June, 2010, the band played at the annual Metaltown festival in Gothenburg
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
thrash
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
/speed
Speed metal
Speed metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from NWOBHM and hardcore punk roots. It is described by Allmusic as "extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding" music....
metal band, formed by former members of Satanic Slaughter
Satanic Slaughter
-History:Having previously performed under the name Evil Cunt, the group first adopted the name Satanic Slaughter in 1985. The group went through several guitarists and other lineup changes in its early years before releasing its first demo, One Night in Hell, in 1988. The group split late in 1989...
in 1997. The current lineup consists of vocalist Emperor Magus Caligula
Emperor Magus Caligula
Emperor Magus Caligula is an extreme metal musician best known as the former vocalist, bassist and lyricist of Swedish black metal band Dark Funeral, performing for the band between 1995 and 2010. He has also been the vocalist of death metal bands Demonoid, replacing Christofer Johnsson, and...
(Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral is a black metal band from Stockholm, Sweden, founded by guitarists Blackmoon and Lord Ahriman in 1993. They are one of the bands to have emerged in Sweden during the Second wave of black metal....
), ex-Devian
Devian
Devian was a Swedish metal band formed by Legion and Emil in 2006. Originally called Rebel Angels, then Elizium, and finally went to Devian after they found Elizium had been used too many times, and the new name sounded more mysterious and sinister.They released two albums, Ninewinged Serpent in...
), guitarists Patrik Jensen
Patrik Jensen
Patrik Jensen is a Swedish guitarist who formed the Swedish thrash metal musical group The Haunted in 1996 with Adrian Erlandsson. He was formerly a member of Seance and Satanic Slaughter and is also a founding member and sole music/lyric writer of Witchery. He is sometimes just referred to as...
and Rickard "Richard Corpse" Rimfält, bassist Sharlee D'Angelo
Sharlee D'Angelo
Sharlee D'Angelo is the bassist for Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, as well as the Swedish hard rock band Spiritual Beggars.Sharlee has also been in various bands in the past, either as a studio session player or full member. Some of these include IllWill and Mercyful Fate as well as...
, and drummer Martin Axenrot
Martin Axenrot
Erik Martin "Axe" Axenrot is the drummer for the bands Opeth, Bloodbath and Witchery. Axenrot played with Opeth on their last five tours, filling in for then drummer Martin Lopez. On May 12, 2006, he officially joined the band as Lopez left permanently...
. To date, the band has released five full-length studio albums and an EP.
History
It all began in 1997 when Swedish cult band Satanic Slaughter split up in a way that basically only left their singer Ztephan Dark in the band. Thus the proto-version of Witchery started out with Satanic Slaughter members Patrik Jensen (Orchriste, The HauntedThe Haunted
The Haunted is a Swedish metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1996.The original members were Anders & Jonas Björler, Peter Dolving, Adrian Erlandsson and Patrik Jensen...
), Rickard "Rille" Rimfält (aka Richard Corpse), vocalist Toxine (Seance, Total Death), drummer Mique (Seance), and bassist Sharlee D'Angelo
Sharlee D'Angelo
Sharlee D'Angelo is the bassist for Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, as well as the Swedish hard rock band Spiritual Beggars.Sharlee has also been in various bands in the past, either as a studio session player or full member. Some of these include IllWill and Mercyful Fate as well as...
(Arch Enemy
Arch Enemy (band)
Arch Enemy is a Swedish melodic death metal band, originally a supergroup, from Halmstad, formed in 1996. Its members were in bands such as Carcass, Armageddon, Carnage, Mercyful Fate, Spiritual Beggars, and Eucharist to name a few. It was founded by Carcass guitarist Michael Amott along with Johan...
, Mercyful Fate
Mercyful Fate
Mercyful Fate was a Danish heavy metal band from Copenhagen. Initially active from 1981 to 1985, they reunited in 1992. The band went on hiatus again in 2000, when frontman King Diamond decided to continue his solo career...
) on board. In 1998 they recorded and released their debut Restless And Dead
Restless And Dead
Restless and Dead is the debut album by Swedish thrash metal band Witchery. Released in 1998 on Necropolis Records, the album features members of the band Satanic Slaughter. The title is a play on the Accept album Restless and Wild.-Background:...
through Necropolis Records
Necropolis Records
Necropolis Records was a record label founded in 1993, mainly providing an American home for extreme black metal to start. The label's roster included artists such as Archgoat, The Black, Incantation, Satanic Slaughter, Witchery, Rotten Sound, Babylon Whores, Dissection, Dawn,, Vondur, Impaled and...
, the name of the album being a pun on Restless and Wild an album by German heavy metal icons Accept
Accept
Accept is a German heavy metal band from the town of Solingen, originally assembled by former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s...
. Witchery quickly gathered a cult following with their combination of serious, technical thrash metal and all topics "dead". Their strictly tongue-in-cheek humour, often involving executions, murder, necrophilia, resurrections and other morbid topics can be spotted in song titles and album names as well as in their very own mascot - an animated skeleton called "Ben Wrangle", the name being a pun on the Swedish word "benrangel" which best translates into "skellington".
Witchery also have their own heavy metal salute, a derivation from the original Sign of the horns "Evil Eye" ward popularized by Ronnie James Dio
Ronnie James Dio
Ronald James Padavona , better known as Ronnie James Dio, was an American heavy metal vocalist and songwriter. He performed with, amongst others, Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, and his own band Dio, which means God in Italian. Other musical projects include the collective fundraiser...
called "The W". For properly "doing the W" only the ring finger and thumb of the performing hand touch. Rumour has it that the salute came into being as somebody in the band tried to do the metal salute with a cigarette between his fingers. This "W" is not to be confused with the Shocker
Shocker (hand gesture)
The shocker, also known colloquially as "two in the pink, one in the stink" or "two in the goo, one in the poo" is a hand gesture with a sexual connotation. The ring finger and thumb are curled or bent down while the other fingers are extended. The index and middle fingers are kept together and...
.
Later that year, Witchery released the Witchburner minialbum. The EP featured three originals and four cover songs bearing witness to the individual musicians’ influences, among them Accept
Accept
Accept is a German heavy metal band from the town of Solingen, originally assembled by former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. Their beginnings can be traced back to the late 1960s...
, W.A.S.P and Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
. The track "Witchburner" being the first ever recording of the band and like the other two original tracks "The Executioner" and "The Howling" only available on this EP so far. In 1999, Witchery embarked on a U.S. tour with Emperor
Emperor (band)
Emperor was a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1991. They dissolved in 2001, but reunited in 2006 and again in 2007 for a few festival dates and brief US tours. The group was founded by Samoth and Ihsahn .-Biography:...
and Borknagar
Borknagar
Borknagar is a progressive black metal band from Bergen, Norway, founded in 1995 by Øystein Garnes Brun. The band's style combines folk metal and black metal with progressive and melodic elements...
. Their second full-length album Dead, Hot and Ready was unleashed soon thereafter, a six-week European tour following in 2000. Symphony For The Devil
Symphony for the Devil (Witchery album)
Symphony For The Devil is Witchery's third full-length studio album after Restless & Dead in 1998 and Dead, Hot And Ready in 1999. "Symphony..." was released in 2001 and has received underground acclaim from metal fanzines and webzines...
, the band’s 2001 release, was recorded at Berno Studio (Amon Amarth
Amon Amarth (band)
Amon Amarth is a Swedish viking metal band from Tumba, Sweden founded in 1992, and takes its name from the Sindarin translation of Mount Doom, a location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The band comprises vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström...
, Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral
Dark Funeral is a black metal band from Stockholm, Sweden, founded by guitarists Blackmoon and Lord Ahriman in 1993. They are one of the bands to have emerged in Sweden during the Second wave of black metal....
) in Malmö, Sweden with new drummer, Martin “Axe” Axenrot
Martin Axenrot
Erik Martin "Axe" Axenrot is the drummer for the bands Opeth, Bloodbath and Witchery. Axenrot played with Opeth on their last five tours, filling in for then drummer Martin Lopez. On May 12, 2006, he officially joined the band as Lopez left permanently...
(Bloodbath
Bloodbath
Bloodbath is a Swedish death metal supergroup from Stockholm formed in 1998.-History:A year after being formed, the band, then consisting of Mikael Åkerfeldt on vocals, Dan Swanö on drums, Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström on guitar, and Jonas Renkse on bass, released their EP Breeding...
, Opeth
Opeth
Opeth is a Swedish heavy metal band from Stockholm, formed in 1990. Though the group has been through several personnel changes, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Mikael Åkerfeldt has remained Opeth's driving force throughout the years...
). Witchery returned to tour North America later that year with The Haunted
The Haunted
The Haunted is a Swedish metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1996.The original members were Anders & Jonas Björler, Peter Dolving, Adrian Erlandsson and Patrik Jensen...
. Returning to Berno Studios in 2004, the band recorded Don’t Fear The Reaper
Don't Fear the Reaper (album)
-Witchery:*Toxine: Vocals*Patrik Jensen: Rhythm Guitar*Rille Rimfalt: Rhythm & Lead Guitar*Sharlee D'Angelo: Bass*Martin Axenrot: Drums, Percussion-Production:*Arranged & Produced By Witchery*Recorded & Engineered By Berno Paulsen...
, this time entrusting mixing duties to Tue Madsen and his Antfarm Studios (The Haunted, Heaven Shall Burn
Heaven Shall Burn
Heaven Shall Burn is a German heavy metal band from Saalfeld, formed in 1996. They combine an aggressive metal sound with lyrics that show a militant support of anti-racism and fighting social injustice. All members of the band are vegan.-Biography:...
, Himsa). After recording the album, the band signed a worldwide record deal with Century Media.
In April 2010 accomplished black metal singer Legion (Erik Hagsted, ex-Marduk, ex-Devian) joined the band to replace Toxine who had to drop out because of schedule issues. According to the press release the split happened by mutual agreement. The new album entitled "Witchkrieg" (a play on the word Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
) has been announced for July 2010. On the 19th of June, 2010, the band played at the annual Metaltown festival in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
Current members
- Patrik JensenPatrik JensenPatrik Jensen is a Swedish guitarist who formed the Swedish thrash metal musical group The Haunted in 1996 with Adrian Erlandsson. He was formerly a member of Seance and Satanic Slaughter and is also a founding member and sole music/lyric writer of Witchery. He is sometimes just referred to as...
- guitars (1997-) - Richard Corpse - guitars (1997-)
- Sharlee D'AngeloSharlee D'AngeloSharlee D'Angelo is the bassist for Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, as well as the Swedish hard rock band Spiritual Beggars.Sharlee has also been in various bands in the past, either as a studio session player or full member. Some of these include IllWill and Mercyful Fate as well as...
- bass (1997-) - Martin AxenrotMartin AxenrotErik Martin "Axe" Axenrot is the drummer for the bands Opeth, Bloodbath and Witchery. Axenrot played with Opeth on their last five tours, filling in for then drummer Martin Lopez. On May 12, 2006, he officially joined the band as Lopez left permanently...
- drums (1999-) - Emperor Magus CaligulaEmperor Magus CaligulaEmperor Magus Caligula is an extreme metal musician best known as the former vocalist, bassist and lyricist of Swedish black metal band Dark Funeral, performing for the band between 1995 and 2010. He has also been the vocalist of death metal bands Demonoid, replacing Christofer Johnsson, and...
- vocals (2011-)
Studio albums
- Restless and Dead - NecropolisNecropolis RecordsNecropolis Records was a record label founded in 1993, mainly providing an American home for extreme black metal to start. The label's roster included artists such as Archgoat, The Black, Incantation, Satanic Slaughter, Witchery, Rotten Sound, Babylon Whores, Dissection, Dawn,, Vondur, Impaled and...
(1998) - Dead, Hot and Ready - NecropolisNecropolis RecordsNecropolis Records was a record label founded in 1993, mainly providing an American home for extreme black metal to start. The label's roster included artists such as Archgoat, The Black, Incantation, Satanic Slaughter, Witchery, Rotten Sound, Babylon Whores, Dissection, Dawn,, Vondur, Impaled and...
(1999) - Symphony For The DevilSymphony for the Devil (Witchery album)Symphony For The Devil is Witchery's third full-length studio album after Restless & Dead in 1998 and Dead, Hot And Ready in 1999. "Symphony..." was released in 2001 and has received underground acclaim from metal fanzines and webzines...
- NecropolisNecropolis RecordsNecropolis Records was a record label founded in 1993, mainly providing an American home for extreme black metal to start. The label's roster included artists such as Archgoat, The Black, Incantation, Satanic Slaughter, Witchery, Rotten Sound, Babylon Whores, Dissection, Dawn,, Vondur, Impaled and...
(2001) - Don't Fear the ReaperDon't Fear the Reaper (album)-Witchery:*Toxine: Vocals*Patrik Jensen: Rhythm Guitar*Rille Rimfalt: Rhythm & Lead Guitar*Sharlee D'Angelo: Bass*Martin Axenrot: Drums, Percussion-Production:*Arranged & Produced By Witchery*Recorded & Engineered By Berno Paulsen...
- Century MediaCentury Media RecordsCentury Media Records is an Independent record label with offices in the United States, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom.- Background :...
(2006) - WitchkriegWitchkrieg-Witchery:*Erik "Legion" Hagstedt: Vocals*Patrik Jensen: Rhythm Guitar*Rille Rimfält: Rhythm & Lead Guitar*Sharlee D'Angelo: Bass*Martin Axenrot: Drums, Percussion-Additional musicians:Guest Leads:*Andy LaRocque*Kerry King*Hank Shermann*Lee Altus...
- Century MediaCentury Media RecordsCentury Media Records is an Independent record label with offices in the United States, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom.- Background :...
(2010)