Unknown Soldier

Album
Witchfinder General were formed by Zeeb Parkes-vocals and Phil Cope-guitar/bass before then adding Graham Ditchfield-drums. The band hailed from Stourbridge in the West Midlands as did Diamond Head (the area was a real hotbed for the NWOBHM) but unlike Diamond Head who had focused on the musical dynamics of a band like Led Zeppelin, Witchfinder General were far more interested in putting out a post-Sabbath type grind instead. The band despite their lack of success, are commonly seen as one of the real pioneers of the doom metal scene and despite not being the oldest of these pioneer bands, were one of the first though to put out an album that resonated a doom metal sound. Since this journal started, there have been numerous bands that have had tracks that could be seen as big influences on doom metal and some of these are even older bands than Witchfinder General. For example a band like Pentagram had been playing a doomy sound well before their British counterparts, but Witchfinder General beat these bands when it came to issuing out a debut album, as well as also beating then fellow doomy newbies such as Saint Vitus and Trouble to debuts as well by a couple of years. Everything about Witchfinder General from the band name, which was delightfully chosen from the excellent Vincent Price horror flick the Witchfinder General 1968, right down to the lusty topless wench being put to death and was described as 'top tack' by Kerrang! shows just how meticulous the band were in laying down the foundations of their image (I’m joking here) This is compared to say the five minutes that Black Sabbath must’ve taken all those years ago in securing theirs! But whereas Black Sabbath emerged as musical metal maestros practically from the word go, Witchfinder General were always going to be a band looking just to make their niche somewhere in an ever-growing metal spectrum. The band had those obvious 70s influences right from the acoustic laid-back guitar intro on the album opener “Invisible Hate” before the song beefs itself up into the band’s typical Sabbath grind. This trend is then carried forth on tracks like “Death Penalty” the plodding tunefulness of “Burning a Sinner” and finally onto “R.I.P” with its stabby Devo type vocals. Now despite their doom metal associations, Witchfinder General well and truly also dug the faster dynamics of Black Sabbath as well and these can be heard on tracks like “Free Country” an obvious nod towards “Paranoid”. Vocalist Zeeb Parkes on the one hand suffers much like a number of other NWOBHM vocalists with his limited range, but much like say Kevin Heybourne of Angel Witch, the quality of the material on the album covers most of those those vocal inadequacies without too much of a problem. The album is littered with a bucketful of silly lyrics and some silly songs (yes those two about halfway through the album) but luckily Zeeb Parkes’ pseudo Ozzy Osbourne type vocals can pull the whole thing off, as do Phil Cope’s Tony Iommi inspired riffs. Now if such a thing exists, Death Penalty is a silly easy-listening doom metal/Sabbath style album that just happens to be pretty ace from start to finish.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History