I just don't see why people are going apeshit over Witchery. Sure, they're a decent band, excellent musicians, and have some alright tunes, but I found this mCD (much like their debut) to be boring as hell. The first half of this release is covers : "Fast As A Shark" (Accept), "I Wanna Be Somebody" (WASP), "Riding On The Wind" (Judas Priest), and "Neon Knights" (Black Sabbath) respectively - none of them were particularly interesting. Witchery have chosen to play it safe and the covers are all done by the book with absolutely no variation from the originals. I therefore found that the amount of enjoyment I got out of these was directly related to how much I liked the originals : "Neon Knights" was the best song of the lot and also the best cover, "Fast As A Shark" is a decent song, the cover was acceptable (snicker), "Riding On The Wind" was never one of my favorite Priest songs, and Witchery have done nothing to change my opinion on this, and lastly, "I Wanna Be Somebody" sucked when WASP originally recorded it and sucks just as badly now. Next we move onto the three originals here, "The Howling", "The Executioner", and "Witchburner". Out of those three, only "Witchburner" had anything to offer - the rest were so non-descript that I barely noticed when one track ended and the next began. It's all standard quick-paced cleaner-than-it-should-be retro inspired fare - *YAWN*

I'd pretty much call this disc a washout. It's really startling how uninspired Witchery sound to me - it's just plastic sounding...perhaps I'm being too hard on this as I was listening to DESASTER right beforehand, and lets face it - compared to them, Witchery suck nads... or perhaps I'm finally getting sick of this whole retro-oriented sound. Whatever it is, I'd say pass on this mCD - the best thing about this is the topless nun photograph on the clear CD tray (we should all be thankful for silicon implants), and even those glorious breasts can't save this...

© 1999 chorazaim