Burning the Witches

Call it blasphemy, but I still think the guitarists made Warlock the great band it was. They played raw German metal riffs à la Accept (especially akin to Restless and Wild), with a little more ferocity. Peter Szigeti later joined U.D.O., whose first album was written by the members of Accept, so you can see he was born for this style, as Udo Dirkschneider too realized. The production strengthened the dual guitar assault, as it put them on the forefront with that distinctively edgy sound that has never quite been recaptured since the 80s. They sound almost like chainsaws – the way they were intended to.

In later albums featuring Doro her vocals seem to take precedence unnecessarily, but here they are nicely mixed at the forefront without drowning everything else out. She is very passionate and powerful on here, singing everything with a lovably abrasive, tough girl attitude. Whereas bands like Girlschool utilized the feminine vocals in distinctly feminine way, the members of Warlock wanted to show a woman could put on just as gruff and powerful a persona as male metal singers, and they succeed.

The drumming is rather basic and sounds very thin, like an old slapping sound effect was amplified. It may bother a few people, but to me it adds a feeling of primitive energy, so that I even appreciate it a little. The beat is steady though undistinguished, which is what these songs call for. These are simple but effective metal tunes, with an idiosyncratic edge and impressive vocal support.

Funnily enough, the Germans have a tendency to write in English even when they don't really control the language. The French opted to write in French instead, sometimes letting a third party translating the lyrics and recording the album twice (Japanese bands occasionally did that too: see Loudness' third release); but the Germans always seemed to feel they could pull off the English. Accept received Deaffy's (inestimable) help, but you can still hear it in some of U.D.O's lyrics: "I'm a freelance man / And I'm breaking and I'm taking tonight". There are plenty of those humorously awkward turns of phrase on this record too, and the songwriting unfortunately suffers for it. You don't expect "Hateful Guy" or "Holding Me" to be Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, but these tunes are really barebones.

There are two hokey ballads on here too: Doro seems to be very fond of them. I find them unlistenable; they are dull, cliché, mannered and lack serious or profound sentiments. They're just a waste of space, plain and simple. Holding Me assumes the guise of groovy rocker, but the actual content equals that of a ballad, so it gets no pass from me. A real shame. Beyond those gripes, this is a disc full of quality traditional Metal tunes.

If you like traditional metal, get this album, and consider getting the next too. I don't think it is a masterpiece, but it still rocks.

The first time I heard Warlock was sometime in 2005 I believe and I fell for the "Burning The Withces" album since it has some really cool heavy metal tunes on it. I didn't really fell for the other albums though, it was only this one that really gave me goosebumps.

The opening track "Signs Of Satan" is like a hard punch in you face from second 1 to the last. The riff's just make you scream "aaaaaahhh" and when everything goes on you just bang your head like never before. "After The Bomb" is more straight heavy metal than the opening track and it's based on a simple but classic and catchy guitar riff. "Dark Fade" is in my ears the first weaker song but still good with an excellent beginning. "Homicide Rocker" is probably my second favorite and has been since I got into Warlock. It's straight hard rock / heavy metal which immediately starts off with some great guitar soling which I enjoy playing air guitar to. The only ballad here is "Without You" and it's a really great one as well. I'm actually one guy that likes beautiful hard rock / metal ballads (although, I like the headbanger stuff more) and this is a classic. Everything's so beautiful and the guitar solo has such a nice feeling, it's like the guitar's crying. "Metal Racer" is probably my least favorite on this album even though many Warlock fans seems to hold that one very high. I don't know, I've maybe got it wrong. "Burning The Witches" is the best track by far. This one can only be described as "heavy f**kin' metal" and it's one of the best songs to come out of Germany, ever. "Hateful Guy" and "Holding Me" has always been like twins for me, I don't really know what I'm seing in them that's so much like each other but they are. They're two great rockers.

The production... Well, I've heard a lot better but let's not forget that this is heavy metal. It's not supposed to sound pretty or polished like the synth pop of that time, it should sound raw and like it's something that was recorded in hell and this album's filling those notes. Actually, the only thing I complain about is that the drums sounds like they're stubs or something. The whole sound (especially the snare drum) sounds so klonky.

The cast is great and I really see that I prefer the songs written by guitarist Rudy Graf but they're all still great. Doro is a wonderful woman with a really powerful voice but her german accent can maybe be a little annoying depending on how closely you listen and taken the music into your head. Everyone's great musicians and there's some really nice guitar riffs aswell as solos.

So finally to my last comments on "Burning The Witches"....

This album is really awesome, every single track is good and especially the title track which is a true classic. I probably hold this at least as high as Accept's "Balls To The Wall" album and I think you should check it out if you like the old shool metal... The real metal... The true metal or whatever!

This is a NICE slab of 80's metal...catchy yet very gritty, sounding kinda early power metalish. Sounds British but I believe this band are German. Reminds me some of Angelwitch and also the UK cult act Hell. All the songs have a really great nwobhm-style hook, Sign of Satan being a fully-pledged epic opener, crashing straight into After the Bomb, which is a bit more of a mid-paced basher with some cool atmospheric guitar lines in the verses. The best track is definately Metal Racer, but Burning the Witches, Dark Fade and Homicide Rocker (which has a riff a little similiar to Angelwitch's Angel of Death) are all brilliant songs. There sin't really a bad song in the bunch...even the ballad Without You is pretty decent.

Much better than I expected, I was surprised that i'd never really heard of this band before - this is definately recommended to fans of Angelwitch, Manilla Road and maybe even Diamond Head - early 80s epic powerish metal bands. I should mention aswell that the vocals are performed by a female, Doro, who went on to have a more successful solo career.

The "German Metal Goddess" is at her "best" on this CD. Though the production is a little weak it's obvious that Warlock really wanted to put together a serious metal release here. Sadly, I don't find this to be any more important to the overall progression of metal than say...Battlezone. It's good, but it's not great, it's strong...but not amazing. The band is tight, the production thin and the vocals are the only thing you'll probably recall after one or two solid listens.

Doro and co.'s weakness is that the songwriting really isn't that special. There is little to seperate the material on this CD from 1,000's of other bands who were choking out "fast and exciting" metal CD's in the middle of the 80's. Doro's pipes do a bit (much in the fashion of Sr. Paul Di'Anno) to lift this material from the mundane to something a tad more interesting but the overall concept is lost on me. It's classic 80's metal in that "so classic it didn't really stand out for any other reason than Doro herself". With songtitles like "Homicide Rocker" and "Hateful Guy" you can be assured that the lyric sheet isn't much to look at either.

This CD in all, is totally average though held as an amazing classic because it helped to set Doro up in one of the longest career's in metal. I geuss that counts for something...but the music just doesn't stand above much of what was going on at the time.

Buy if it you like the over-the-top 80's boogie-down metal...but don't look for anything mindblowing.