Members of AJAX, Firewalker, Red Death & Warthog Form WITCHTRIAL & Release S/T 12-inch EP (Beach Impediment Records)

It's always reasonably enjoyable when artists start up a new side-project or band that's slightly outside of their typical/expected genre; for example, Hardcore Punks playing "Classic Rock" (Angel Du$t on Pretty Buff or The Men on Tomorrow's Hits,) Norwegian Heavy Metalers playing sunny Power-Pop (Kvelertak as Beacheads,) Fleet Foxes drummer J. Tillman re-emerging as Indie Rock/Folk heart-throb Father John Misty, members of Anthrax, Fall Out Boy & Every Time I Die joining forces as Pop Punk-inflected Heavy Metal band The Damned Things, Brownout covering Black Sabbath as Brown Sabbath, Ty Segall's Noise-Rock/Punk side-band GØGGS... I could, honestly, go on and on! So, this brings us to the latest band of merry misfits doing unexpected things musically: WITCHTRIAL. A primarily DC-based band, WITCHTRIAL consists of members of some of The East Coast's finest Punk/Hardcore bands, including, but not limited to, Ben Wessels from New York's AJAX, Cecelia Halle from Boston's Firewalker, Connor Donegan from DC-based Red Death, and M. "Goo" Gorup from AJAX, as well as New York's own Warthog. WITCHTRIAL quietly released their Demo 2017 last April to wide-spread acclaim through the local scene/industry with a quick, yet extremely satisfying burst of 5 face-melting 80's Speed/Heavy Metal-reminiscent tracks.


Now, WITCHTRIAL have returned with an extremely fun 6-track self-titled 12-inch EP on Richmond, Virginia-based Beach Impediment Records. Stereogum Senior Editor Tom Breihan says, "they careen through monstrous riffs with reckless speed and their solos and grunt-it-out vocals and rhythm section carnage all work together to f*ck your whole sh*t up." I would, personally, liken WITCHTRIAL's S/T EP to something along the lines of when 1980's-era Metallica covered The Misfits' "Last Caress/Green Hell" on The $5.98 EP: Garage Days Re-Revisited and again, on 1998's Garage Inc. covering "Die, Die My Darling." If active during the 80's East Coast Punk/Hardcore scene, WITCHTRIAL could have easily existed during that post-Misfits period when frontman Glenn Danzig was transitioning in-between Samhain's blend of Heavy Metal-infused Horror Punk and Danzig's full-on Heavy Metal/Blues Rock assault at the hand of legendary record "reducer" Rick Rubin. WITCHTRIAL's S/T 12-inch EP was recorded by Merchandise frontman Carson Cox and mixed and mastered by "Bandcamp Punk secret weapon" Will Killingsworth. WITCHTRIAL's S/T EP is currently available on either SILVER or BLACK VINYL through Beach Impediment Records' mail-order site, as well as Bandcamp and like-minded digital streaming services. There's two additional Punk/Hardcore-adjacent releases, GAME's NO ONE WINS LP—featuring F*CKED UP drummer Jonah Falco!—and Condor's Singles 2017-2018 12-inch, also, currently available in both digital and physical formats from Beach Impediment.