Witching Hour: ...And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon (2018)

As a huge fan of the Hells Headbangers label, I tend to pick up a number of their releases each year.  Usually the releases are some kind of old-school-sounding combination of black, thrash and speed metal.  Occasionally there is a death or doom metal album in there.  And so when I saw the Witching Hour release, I had at least a reasonable idea of what to expect.  Their Metal Archives page lists them as black/thrash metal, so I had an idea what this would sound like.

I was wrong. 

Witching Hour refers to their sound as "ancient black metal", but I am guessing that refers more to their earlier material, because this album is pretty far removed from typical black metal.  Upon a superficial first listen, I would have called it more doom/heavy metal.  After a few more spins, my opinion is more that it is the hypothetical result of if Manilla Road started covering Venom.  It is an epic, dynamic and melodic album with slower-paced thrash-esque riffs and pained, wailing vocals.  The songs are mostly lengthy, and overall tell a cohesive story. 

The highlight is the opening title track which is something of a microcosm of the album as a whole.  It begins in grandiose fashion and splinters off into several movements with some very impressive riffwork, warbling leads and the vocalist's breathy yowl.  From there the remaining songs follow a similar pattern without ever becoming too predictable or boring.

It took a few listens to fully digest this album.  It was not what I was led to believe it would be.  It is so much more.  I will dig deeper into Witching Hour's discography, but I doubt I will find anything quite like this one.