{"id":102857,"date":"2024-04-05T00:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T23:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=102857"},"modified":"2024-04-09T12:23:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:23:33","slug":"album-review-attic-return-of-the-witchfinder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-attic-return-of-the-witchfinder\/","title":{"rendered":"ATTIC – Return Of The Witchfinder (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATTIC
Return Of The Witchfinder<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nV\u00e1n (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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With their first album since 2017 sophomore effort Sanctimonious<\/em>, Germany occult metallers Attic again plunder the darkest depths of Mercyful Fate and King Diamond for another round of Ouija board hokum. With a \u201cnew\u201d guitarist in Max Povver who joined in 2017, the band continues its bewitching and spellbinding but all too familiar brand of Goth-infused devil rock.<\/p>\n

Return Of The Witchfinder<\/em> is certainly a heavy album. In fact, it is the band\u2019s weightiest slab and it\u2019s one that bristles with demonic glee. Obviously the King Diamond and Mercyful Fate comparisons will spring to mind, particularly in the vocal output of Meister Cagliostro, but Attic is still a driving heavy metal force and I\u2019m glad they are back and dripping with occult menace.<\/p>\n

\u2018Darkest Rites\u2019 sends a spinal shiver with its bell chime followed by fiery, speeding guitar work and those eerie vocals which spiral into the black sky before plummeting back to an organic grizzle. \u2018Hailstorm And Tempest\u2019 emerges with less vim and pace, where instead the focus is on a spectral glide based around traditional axe fire and J.P.\u2019s steady drum whacks. At their most melodious Attic concoct the mystical waft of \u2018The Thief\u2019s Candle\u2019 with its steely, worming solo, while the title cut dredges up more King Diamond energy like some black magician conjuring evil spirits.<\/p>\n

In spite of the quality musicianship on offer here, Attic will forever be seen as a King Diamond mimic, and with the band being away for so long I thought that they might have constructed something a little less familiar, because even with all the theatrics Return Of The Witchfinder<\/em> is hellish homage which prompts me to slap on Mercyful Fate\u2019s 1984 Don\u2019t Break The Oath<\/em> opus instead.<\/p>\n

Even with the crisp melodies of \u2018The Baleful Baron\u2019 or the haunting zip of \u2018Offerings To Baalberith\u2019, the album lacks identity but in contrast provides dollops of atmosphere that creeps along your hallway to the echo of creaking floorboards. One will naturally be moved by that nostalgic air of a time when heavy metal was genuinely sinister, but in a world of saturated Satanism and diluted devilry, Attic\u2019s latest platter delivers quite a punch although the bruises don\u2019t last. Certainly fun while it lasts, Return Of The Witchfinder<\/em> is more hocus-pocus than harum-scarum.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATTICReturn Of The Witchfinder V\u00e1n (2024)Rating: 7.5\/10 With their first album since 2017 sophomore effort Sanctimonious, Germany occult metallers Attic again plunder the darkest depths of Mercyful Fate and King Diamond for another round of Ouija board hokum. With a \u201cnew\u201d guitarist in Max Povver who joined in 2017, the band continues its bewitching and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-attic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102864,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102857\/revisions\/102864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}