Atomic Witch Death Etiquette Review
Atomic Witch
Death Etiquette
Redefining Darkness Records
2025
(a review by someone frothing at the mouth and literally bleeding from the ears)
I don’t know why Ohio keeps catching me off guard, maybe it’s the trauma of Browns football but I’m perpetually stunned when something rules from that cursed land. Sure, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame squats there like some gilded mausoleum of past relevance, but that doesn’t mean jack shit when you're staring down a nuclear blast of METAL that hits you like a tire iron to the temple.
Atomic Witch enters the chat...
Cleveland's very own harbingers of hell, birthed in 2016 and forged in the flames of every filthy dive bar with a PA system duct-taped together by Satan himself. I slept on this band. I’m ashamed. I didn’t know. I should’ve known. But once their new album “Death Etiquette” hit my inbox, it was like the heavens parted and a goat-headed deity screamed directly into my soul. Love at first blast beat. Lust at first tremolo.
This isn’t your little cousin’s core shit. Atomic Witch tap into the crusty, blood-drenched lineage of Ghoul, Goatwhore, Toxic Holocaust, and Cleveland's own black-leathered warlocks, Midnight. This is the kind of band that wakes you up in the middle of the night sweating and thinking, “Did I leave the oven on or am I just possessed again?” It's got that same venomous spit and fire-snorting swagger. It’s nasty. It’s sleazy. It’s absolutely unholy. And if you told me they found this sound buried in a haunted 8-track in a rotting Plymouth Barracuda, I’d believe you.
They even stir the cauldron with some real underground grotesquery; The Lurking Corpses and their deranged horror-punk-thrash DNA are clearly in the blood here. And holy hell, even Bitchslicer, yes, that Philly band with the juvenile brilliance of “Cum Inside”, makes a spiritual cameo in spirit alone. This isn’t pastiche. This is evolution by decomposition.
Let’s crack the casket open and get a look at this bitch:
“Morgue Rat” kicks it all off like you’ve just been jumped by a gang of undead greaseballs with nailbats. What’s a morgue rat? No clue. Probably something that licks corpses. Who cares, it rips. The riffs are an unholy marriage of early Slayer and demonic swamp gas. I haven’t heard leads this dangerous since Kerry King could still see straight.
Then it’s straight into “Of Flesh and Chrome”, a sleazeball thrasher that feels like getting T-boned by a flaming hearse. The guitars chug and slice like chainsaws soaked in motor oil. And the vocals are full-on “Them”- era King Diamond–shrieks from the dimension where your childhood fears go to multiply.
By the time “Worms and Dirt” slithers in, you’re not even listening anymore, you’re living it. Mid-tempo riff worship that still hits like a hammer made of teeth. This one shows off the band’s mastery of restraint and release. You think you’re safe, then the next riff shanks you in the neck. And there’s even more here to be had, but you need to hear it for yourself, just don’t miss out on the tune “Death Edging”. I’m not sure if I’m turned on or what, it’s really something to behold.
This album is only 27 minutes long, but it feels like getting exorcised by electricity. No filler. No nap time. Just a relentless goddamn freight train hauling decapitated mannequins and cursed VHS tapes. The production is killer, raw without being sloppy, sharp without being sterile. The riffs sound like they're coated in tetanus.
And let’s not gloss over the fact that Atomic Witch aren’t some bedroom project with a Hot Topic vibe. These guys are lifers. They live and breathe this shit. They don’t care about algorithms or marketability. They want to rip your spine out and wear it like a bolo tie. And honestly, I respect the hell out of that.
“Death Etiquette” drops July 26th via Redefining Darkness Records, and you better believe I ordered my copy of the record. I even picked up their debut, “Crypt of Sleepless Malice”, on vinyl because I need this evil in my life in physical form.
The label’s got stock in hand, the band’s posting vinyl pics on their socials, and unless the post office spontaneously combusts, you’ll have your copy in time to terrify the neighbors.
Top 10 album of the year, no contest. Right up there with Rotgut and Mean Mistreater. Atomic Witch are now on my radar permanently, carved in with rusty nails and bile. Book them a tour with Nunslaughter, Bewitcher, or fuck it, reanimate Lemmy and put ‘em on the road together.
You like Metal? You like horror? You like being brutalized by sound?
Then put on your big boy pants and get “Death Etiquette” this album doesn’t ask for your attention. It takes it by force.