Review by Fernando on April 28, 2024.

I've sung the praises for Finnish black metal a lot recently, the Finns simply have an understanding of metal that’s undeniable, and the country having the largest number of metal bands in the world certainly helps. And while many bands stick to raw grimness, try new things or just have their own sound, some bands try to hearken to very specific sounds from the heyday of black metal. Enter Witches Hollow. These guys are one of the newer bands that popped out in the late 2010's and took advantage of the pandemic to immerse themselves in songwriting. And this is their third opus Grimoire which was released in 2023.

By their own admission, Witches Hollow play black metal indebted to early Dimmu Borgir, Old Man’s Child, and Denial of God, and with King Diamond styled storytelling. So from that description you can expect very melodic and adventurous black metal with a majestic quality and a sinister atmosphere. And to their credit they play it expertly, the music is as grim as it is grandiose and with a clean production this is for lack of a better word, an epic record, the type that would sound perfect paired to a big fantasy battle or the outbreak of a storm and earthquake. The sound is just massive, the production has every single instrument pop out, and the vocals, especially while listening with headphones, sound as if the vocalist is screaming next to you.

Witches Hollow really pulled together to make this record as bombastic and engrossing as possible and they succeed. Even while admitting to their influences, they still sound like their own entity, because while this record is indebted to mid to late 90's black metal, the overall songwriting and dynamics are definitely modern, and at no point does the record sounds intentionally handicapped or limited. Granted, one area I can criticize is how the record is a black metal album by and for fans of the style, but that's fine, because the band doesn't presume to be something they aren't. And as stated, everything is dialed up to 11, from the instruments and the production, to the performances and even the artwork. This is meant to be a brutal and grandiose display of evil and they nail it.

One last thing I want to say to close off this review, is that a lot of the biggest problems with extreme metal nowadays is what in my opinion feels like a contest of one-up's-man-ship while also conforming to the past in a way where there's a lot of recycled music that sounds alike. In death metal it was the whole old school revivalism, and in black metal most bands seem to be either cribbing Finnish black metal, or jumped into the vampyric raw black metal, or wholesale copy the style of other bands. Witches Hollow, while they are also drawing from their influences, are one of the rare cases where they aren't beholden to their influences, nor are they conforming to trends. This record is a true display of passion and devotion, and that is admirable.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10