Bewitched ‎"Rise Of The Antichrist" CD

Released by Osmose in 2002. Awesome album of Bewitched, from Umeå (Sweden), with members of Naglfar and Ancient Wisdom, mixing thrash/black metal with classic heavy metal.

Solid little power-thrash album here... reminding more of an old Nasty Savage sound than anything else. Not consistently fast enough to be speed metal, not death enough to be death, a bit different from classic thrash while retaining its old-school sound... well it just kinda falls in between all those genres, it's just HEAVY FUCKING METAL. There we go.
What we have here is 8 slabs of fun, catchy heavy metal - and one silly outro, which we will never speak of again. The rest ranges from midpaced to slightly above it, with each song throwing in at least one catchy riff, if not more. The album actually gets stronger as it goes on, with two the highlights "Bewitched by Evil" and "The Rippers Return" being the last two songs, and the title track, the absolute best song on here, kind of in the middle.
Then again, there really isn't a weak song here - we start with the headbanger "Worship the Fire". Nice midpaced groove riff, kinda harsh (think "Lemmy" on general principles) vocals - there really isn't much technical about this band, and they ride two or three riffs for the entirety of a song, but it's a good, well-written song. They know their limitations - they won't put in the female moog trumpet section, just because they can.
Victim of the Cult is solid speed metal, then Rise of the Antichrist is the thrashiest song on here - the one that can honestly be called thrash fucking metal, no question about it. They throw in a bit of a melodic break before segueing into more solid fucking riffage. This song just screams ownage. Then, we follow with Sacrificed in Flames, whcih is another thrasher. These two, along with the last two, are the highlight of the album.
Then the last 3 (forget that outro!) are also very good songs... if you like Nasty Savage but without the really squeaky vocals, and in general just want an album that screams HEAVY FUCKING METAL in the classic style, this is the one you need. A bit of Venom influence, some Exodus, some old Panzer even... good stuff.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...