Around the time Burning Witches started writing for last year’s ‘Dance With The Devil’, the Swiss band seemed to realize that they needed a little more variation in order to stand out from the crop of younger traditional heavy metal bands. On that particular album, the increased variation in tempos was the most notable change, although the addition of Dutch singer Laura Guldemond allowed them to write for a wider range of vocal styles as well. Upon hearing ‘The Witch Of The North’, it immediately becomes clear that the material was written to make the most of the opportunities Guldemond presents.
Stylistically, the music on ‘The Witch Of The North’ does not even differ all that much from what Burning Witches has done in the past. The larger degree of theatricality and the slightly more elaborate guitar arrangement push the overall sound a bit closer to power metal than before, but Burning Witches is still clearly the same band as on their previous three albums. What always bugged me about their first two albums is that they adhered to mid-tempo territory and simple structures too often and too long to truly live up to their potential. ‘The Witch Of The North’ certainly shows a lot more fire.
For me, Burning Witches is at their best when they play more uptempo material. The band notably dialled up the intensity on the faster songs on the record, which along with Guldemond’s vocals pushes some of the songs close to thrash territory. Parts of ‘Thrall’, the opening title track and closer ‘Dragon’s Dream’ have enough aggression to please thrashers who don’t mind an amount of melody more akin to heavy and power metal. Another great asset of ‘The Witch Of The North’ is that different tempos and time feels enhance each other far more than anything Burning Witches has released up until this point.
What really makes ‘The Witch Of The North’ work as a whole, however, is the degree of drama in the melodies and the song structures, which is unlike anything Burning Witches has ever done before. A track like ‘Nine Worlds’ or the excellent ‘Flight Of The Valkyries’ goes through more different atmospheres than is usual for the band and while that could be risky, I would say that it generally pays off. An additional benefit is that it makes the mid-tempo tracks, such as ‘For Eternity’ and the particularly awesome ‘Tainted Ritual’, stand out more and sound considerably better than in the past.
Improving with each album rather than playing things safe is something that deserves praise and that is exactly what Burning Witches has done here. Sure, it’s not perfect – the verses of the ballad ‘Lady Of The Woods’ sound a little too similar to ‘Black Magic’ off the previous album and some structures come off a bit chaotic – but the band seems to become more aware of their strengths and weaknesses with each album. In addition, having a singer like Laura Guldemond really helped push them from decent to actually good. I just can’t get over the fact that the character that’s supposed to be her on the cover doesn’t look anything like her.
Recommended tracks: ‘The Witch Of The North’, ‘Tainted Ritual’, ‘Thrall’, ‘Flight Of The Valkyries’
Kevy Metal 
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