Witchgöat release their third album, Serpent Hordes, on 4 December. Personal Records has the CD, Morbid Skull Records the cassette, and the title track is out now.
The band put the record in the context of a decade. P. Scyther started it in San Salvador in 2016 with a specific mixture in mind: the raw violence of eighties South American and European thrash against the darker melodies of early Scandinavian black and blackened death metal. M. Miasma arrived with the first occult lyrics, and the band name came from each of them picking a word. C. Fog on bass and E. Driller on drums completed it in 2017.
What followed was the Umbra Regit demo and Egregors of the Black Faith, both on Morbid Skull, then Altars of Necromancy in late 2023, which pushed them further into black metal in both the writing and the production. By 2024 they had started reconsidering that, which is where this record comes from.
Ten years is also long enough to notice how few bands from El Salvador reach a third album at all, let alone one with two labels fighting over formats.