ALBUM REVIEW: FEVEREATEN – Witch Fever

Any notion WITCH FEVER have sanded their rough edges on sophomore record FEVEREATEN is quickly dispelled on the confrontationally named opener DEAD TO ME!. With a refrain where Amy Walpole howls its title over a gladiatorial assault of doom fuzz, it’s a typically in-your-face ode to anyone or anything that ought to do one. It’s a song spitting back at hollow platitudes in which anger is fuel for reclamation, taking agency and control back. 

Crucially, it’s an introduction to an album that finds WITCH FEVER losing none of their ferocity while refining everything that made their debut, Congregation, so exciting. There’s still the sense of a band playing for their lives, spurred on by unshackling from oppression, whether that be religious or patriarchal; the scrappy nature of their debut has been honed into something more ambitious. Take THE GARDEN, a slow-burning storm of a song reframing Eve as a figure of liberation. Being cast out of Eden never sounded so good. 

The church provides a recurring antagonist across WITCH FEVER’s art, and it continues to be a wellspring of inspiration. NORTHSTAR is a confessional standout, like a retort to a sermon, on which Walpole hasn’t left the church, the church has left her. The title track confronts Walpole’s inability to leave the church behind as a source of creative energy, as she sings “I thought I’d gotten over it, but it consumes like I was born for it”. She ultimately resolves to let her frustrations in rather than deny them, feeling them, owning them, accepting this adversarial relationship as an integral part of her makeup. 

But Walpole also points the finger inward. On SEE YA NEXT TUESDAY, she labels herself the mother of her own destruction. It’s a short, sharp burst of self-accountability on which she celebrates imperfections, but it’s also a slap to her own face, a get-a-grip moment. It ends, gloriously, with a cathartic c-bomb from deep within. 

It’s also symbolic of their growing indulgence in bloody massive riffs. Whether it’s SEE YA NEXT TUESDAY’s fury or REPRISE’s mosh-call (“Witch. Fucking. Fever!”), the record leans into the pummelling musicality of hardcore and metal. WITCH FEVER have always made music for gritted teeth and nails dug into palms, but this bigger, badder string to their bow commands a full-body response. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere, like on DRANK THE SAP, on which tumultuous distortion is accompanied by “woo’s” from the band, swept up in the adrenaline of this aggressive shot in the arm. 

These moments of wild abandon are euphoric, they are the sound of freedom reclaimed, the permission to embrace the flawed and the feral. For all of FEVEREATEN’s rage, its defiance is imbued with triumph. The band are seeing clearly, unclouded by outside influence, and so the record is a celebration of leaving behind what’s not serving you. That clarity of vision also brings a fuller, bolder sound, making the band feel more complete, as if everything up until now had been in draft form. FEVEREATEN is the band’s finest work yet, a major achievement, and WITCH FEVER are only getting better. 

Rating: 8/10

FEVEREATEN is out now via Music For Nations. 

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