Witch Taint
From the mean streets of Gary, Indiana by way of Oslo, Norway (or maybe the other way around- we’re not sure) comes Witch Taint, the most extremely extreme and Satanic Norwegian Black Metal band from Indiana ever probably and you can ask anyone.
While the origins of Witch Taint remain hazy, even to the members themselves, there is at least some evidence of the band’s existence dating back as far as late 2004, when Witch Taint founder Lance the King of Black Metal and About 500 Other Things Most People Can’t Handle (rumored to actually be comedian/musician Dave Hill) began emailing a mysterious man named Saittham, managing director of a Norwegian Black Metal record label in Norway, in hopes of securing a record contract (Read their legendary, extreme, brutal and 100% real email correspondence for yourself at www.theblackmetaldialogues.com) despite the fact that he had yet to record any music. However, we also know a version of the band consisting of Lance and his sworn enemy, Oslo native Matthias Backwards (rumored to actually be musician/comedian Phil Costello), began performing live as a duo in 2017, reading the aforementioned emails and playing a select few extremely extreme songs during sold out appearances at SXSW, in London and Oslo (where none other than Fenriz from Darkthrone was in the front row), and at the 2018 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. These shows were awesome and a lot of members of the audience had to receive counseling both during and after the show because it was so kvlt, infernal, and occasionally foul in odor.
Anyway, after noticing the largely German-speaking audience at Wacken seemed to prefer their music over their talking, Lance and Matthias began recording the full-length debut Witch Taint album as soon as they got back to America. By this time, interest in Witch Taint had grown so much that none other than author Malcolm Gladwell dedicated an entire episode of his Broken Record podcast to the Witch Taint origin story and Lance’s email correspondence.
This past spring, Witch Taint began performing as a full, six-member live band (consisting mostly of members found in the darkest recesses of Craigslist) that is so extreme, brutal, grim, unholy, kvlt, and just sort of negative in general that most people can’t even handle it basically even if everyone agrees the Witch Taint T-shirts are pretty awesome and they should really consider keeping more mediums in stock but whatever.
The band’s full-length debut Sons of Midwestern Darkness, recorded entirely in darkness in a damp room that was also annoyingly cold even if you wore a coat and a hat and stuff the whole time, is set to be released by Tee Pee Records on 4/10/20. The album is extremely difficult to listen to in all the best ways and features guest appearances from members of such not-nearly-as-extreme-as-Witch Taint bands as Venom, Carpathian Forest, & Autopsy and also Lance’s dog Lucifuge because they forgot to keep the basement door shut even though she will end up coming down there every single time no matter what. Sons of Midwestern Darkness is a twelve-song collection of extremely grim yet very catchy & danceable heavy metal anthems that are perfect to get hammered and sing along to with all your closest friends and enemies. There are also five extremely extreme interludes where Lance and Matthias Backwards basically school motherfuckers on various topics, which is awesome. If you think you can handle it, which-statistically speaking anyway-you probably can’t, please get yourself a copy. And by all means, come see the band live (where Lance and Matthias will be joined by the destructive tendencies of opera diva La Sinistra [rumored to be Jennifer Valle], bassist Dean Ripper [rumored to be Dean Rispler], guitarist Thomas Guillotine [rumored to be Tom Beaujour], and drummist Markus St. Bastard [rumored to be Dave Richman]) for an assault on yours and a lot of other people’s senses. However, whether you decide to kill yourself, go sit in a ditch for a while, or simply stare off into the distance for a disturbingly long amount of time as a result of having done either one of these things, that is not Witch Taint’s fucking problem. Also, Witch Taint has a website at www.witchtaint.com. So there.