Mystifier - Wicca (Reissue)

Mystifier

Wicca (Reissue)

by Marcos "The Jungle Guy" Garcia at 05 January 2014, 2:16 PM

Well, as a Brazilian long time Metalian, is easy to me to speak about MYSTIFIER as a witness of their career, as well as I can talk about their albums, and now, 1992’s “Wicca” got a reissue.

On the band, we can hear and feel a strong Death / Black Metal feeling, coming from bands like earlier BATHORY, VENOM and Brazilian bands SARCÓFAGO and first SEPULTURA albums as well. Harsh and darkened, sometimes fast (not in a modern way, please. I am talking about a 1992 album), other times slower and atmospheric, in this CD we truly can feel what Black Metal was about on that period of time.

The vocals are harsh, using some low grunts sometimes, cold guitar riffs and solos that cause nightmares on more conservative ones (to some newcomers, the volume can sound low, but it was the way back then, when to record an album was very expensive), bass and drums doing a strong rhythmic basis, and with some keyboards appearing here and there to make things even darker. Conclusion: prepare your ears for bleeding.

The sound production is raw, putrid to the core, but making the band’s music understandable. but again I must remember you all: Brazil was living a chaotic crisis in economy, so to put a band on studio and record was very expensive, as well as Brazilian musicians were only starting to get better equipment and sound gears, and studio technicians knew only to deal with Samba and another styles out of Metal. The things were cruel here. The cover is the original one from vinyl, without censorship trying to cut it. It’s a good testimony from that time.

Musically, I must incline that “Wicca” is a good album, having some fine songs as “Osculum Obscenum” (great vocals!), “Tormentum Aeternu” (with some excellent slower moments, showing the good work from bass and drums), “Cursed Excruciation”, and “Hyoscyamus Niger”. But it’s far from their excellent works, as we can hear in “The World Is So Good That Who Made It Doesn't Live Here”, “Demystifying the Mystified Ones for a Decade in the Earthly Paradise” and “Profanus”. Hearing those, you can for sure recognize the band as being the same from “Wicca” (their identity is the same), but the impression is that they could do something better, but I can say that “Wicca” is a fine starting point for them.

A fine reissue, but why in the blazes the other bands albums can’t be reissued as well?