Hexenhaus - Dejavoodoo (1997)

Suddenly, like a sea storm breaking on an uncaring pier of sharp rocks, the Hexenhaus machine had come to a halt after releasing the enticing third album Awakening in 1991. With such a promising direction and increase in musical dementia, one really hoped they would capitalize by releasing their magnum opus, but alas, like Babylon, thrash would crash and burn its way out of the public consciousness and this Swedish act, too, would disappear from the annals of potential...for a spell. This is mostly likely due to the fact that guitarist Mike Wead was busy in King Diamond in the early 90s, later joining Mercyful Fate as well in 1996, both of which were far better paying gigs in which to apply his skills, not to mention higher visibility with tours, interviews, and a massive installed fan base.

As it turns out, we were not to be ultimately let down by Wead or Hexenhaus, because there was one more full-length in the works, and come 1997, Dejavoodoo would arrive through Black Mark Productions, a better label than their previous Active for metal music, being the home of Quorthon and his family members and at this time working with a number of great Swede bands like Lake of Tears and Necrophobic. Impressively, despite the six year gap in releases, this album came packaged with the same lineup as Awakening, and a comparable style, hyper charged with musicianship, a more intense alternative to Wead's work with Diamond/Fate given a tech thrash injection that would send fans of Mekong Delta, Watchtower and Psychotic Waltz into fits of self-pleasure. The rhythm section returns for their most intense battery yet, especially drummer Billy St. John, and vocalist Lyon has also polished his approach, smoother and more controlled tones than the previous album.

But the riffs...the riffs clearly steal the show on this album, as we hear early on with the melodic, cycling aggression of "Reborn (at the Back of Beyond)", both mystical and progressive and a wonderful evolution of the band's early 90s aim. The increased production values of Dejavoodoo inc comparison to the prior output are quite necessary and instrumental to this album's success, each ripple of brilliant axe work captured in the clinical, paranoid amber "Phobia", a surge of perfectly sharpened thrash dementia which explores the fears of the listener as much as those of the lyrical narrator. 8 and a half minutes thrash by here, but you'll hardly notice, as the band's dynamics and pace are so well maintained. Another lengthy track follows, the 8 minutes of "Nocturnal Rites", which begins with a blissful clean guitar passage that morphs into subtle strikes of a synthesizer behind a wall of beautiful, slow cruising riffs that arch and collapse until Lyon arrives, a helmsman on a ship to insanity, emitting beautiful choruses above the heavy rain of this dark, nocturnal seascape.

"Dejavoodoo" itself is a wondrous little shred exercise, melodies glinting over a crunchy, hammering backbone and swells of cautionary keyboard, leading up to the music box intro that heralds "From the Cradle to the Grave", eclipsed by creepy, haunted synth lines and doom-like melodies, demented Lyon narrative reminiscent of lower-pitched Geoff Tate. This is the most experimentally structured of the album's tracks, but also one of the most gripping. The finale of the band's career, "Rise Babylon Rise", has its work cut out for it, but brings all the tools for the task, a roiling intro of synthesizers and muted guitars busting out into some of the most beautiful and climactic melodies of the entire Hexenhaus catalog. A great song to close with, and the only regret could be that there would be no more...

Yes, this was the final hour for the Swedish band, and let us hand them credit where it is deserved, for the band completed a career without ever once dipping below the precipice of greatness. I often find myself juggling between this record and the darker, simpler debut A Tribute to Insanity, which featured a much different vocalist and a more direct, ominous brand of brute, measured thrashing, and I am declaring here that it is Dejavoodoo which offers the band at their very finest. The quality of each track is quite good, the musicianship superb but balanced, and the mixing quality at its peak here. Coming out against a period where quality thrash, especially that of a progressive nature, was almost unheard of, it easily compensates for any investment of time and money you could pour into it, and then some.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (no more whistling in the dark)

Hexenhaus - Awakening (1991)

Despite their parent genre hanging over the edge of the abyss by the time it would see the light of creation, Hexenhaus' third album Awakening retains the general quality of its predecessors, but also starts to explore new territory due to the addition of yet another new front man in Thomas Lyon, who had been kicking around for years in an obscure Swedish thrash outfit called Hatred. Lyon has a higher pitched, wavering voice distinct from his predecessors Tommie Agrippa and Nick Johansson, and in fact he sounds more like a John Arch of Fates Warning or Alan Tecchio of Watchtower. In fact, the entire album seems as if Mike Wead had desired to explore a more complex ground, and Awakening could be considered a solid example of progressive, technical European thrash, running in the circles of a Mekong Delta, Depressive Age, or Deathrow, or US acts Psychotic Waltz and Watchtower.

Though quite a stretch from the debut A Tribute to Insanity, Hexenhaus bear the brunt of this new direction well, and Awakening is yet another delight in their catalog to peruse, and further proof of a sound body of work that should never have been ignored by the raving tech thrash lunatics out there. The music is punchy, effective, and proficient, and as the intro "Shadows of Sleep" parts its acoustic gleanings, the title track erupts with a number of well plotted riffs on a course for the same schizophrenic madness that made one salivate over a Deception Ignored, Control and Resistance or Realm's Endless War, even if Hexenhaus are not quite so complex or bewildering in delivery. For the riff hound, there are plenty of bones to horde just in this song alone, and a superb lead sequence that cedes into dark, thrashing currents, screeches and whispers. "Betrayed (By Justice)" continues with some flowing, popping bass and wonderfully demented guitars that explode like a dynamic, melodic asylum.

Even more ambitiously, the band next lurch into the 11 minute epic "Necronomicon Ex Mortis" with a pretty large riff count of quality, and some sequences in which the synthesizer is adeptly added to create the epic atmosphere such a composition usually requires to stay fresh and inviting through its lengthy discourse. "Code 29" is a graceful, flighty instrumental which sets up the two-fisted pumping, mid-paced thrash riffs of "The Forthcoming Fall", which phase in and out of elegant power not unlike a more technical adept to Messiah Marcolin's post-Candlemass work in Memento Mori. "Sea of Blood" surges with a killer, frenetic fill riff in the verse that shifts into brilliant and savage speed metal with tiny flourishes of shred-work, and "Paradise of Pain" feels like its natural continuation, with similar guitar work. If you've enjoy the album up to this point, the remaining tracks "The Eternal Nightmare Act II" and "Incubus" will continue to titillate, cornucopias of quality and inventive riff work that draw you deeper into the band's nearly spastic madness.

Awakening is not so dire or brute as A Tribute to Insanity, and a lot more involved musically than The Edge of Eternity, but its a very natural progression. The band have not repeated themselves in the vocal chair, but they still retain enough elements of that initial savagery to bludgeon through the heightened flight of Mike Weak and Marco A. Nicosia, who manically captivate the listener with their busywork over a tight and efficient rhythm department. The mix of this record is still fairly dark, straightforward and organic like the prior albums, and by 1991, they were elevating to the top of the technical thrash/speed pool despite the rest of the genre sinking like a faulty cruise liner. There has never been enough buzz around Hexenhaus, so here is the chance to rectify that, track down their legacy and partake.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (innocent in uncertainty)

Hexenhaus - The Edge of Eternity (1990)

I truly enjoyed the Hexenhaus debut A Tribute to Insanity from the year 1988. Not only was it one of the best examples of a thrash and power hybrid from Sweden in that decade, and a well-composed, cruel romp in the vein of a Metal Church or Savatage with the heavy turned up, but it was also Mike Wead's best work outside of material with Mercyful Fate & King Diamond. When I discovered the project would be returning for a sophomore effort, my expectations were severely elevated, even though the debut had only recently arrived through the Metal Blade reissue, and it remains their most visible work (all of the subsequent offerings were so obscure that many did not know of their existence).

The Edge of Eternity continues along the path set by the debut, though the band have slightly undergone a progressive renewal, or rather an increase in the technical thrash elements that weren't really present before, while the band hammered out should have been classics like "Eaten Alive". It's impressive that the band has remained this loyal, though, because the three members of Manninya Blade left the band after A Tribute to Insanity. In fact, the entire lineup on this sophomore has been replaced with the exception of Mike Wead himself. Vocalist Tommy Agrippa steps in for Nick Johanssen and does a fairly smash up job of it, with a tone just as cruel as Nick's, while the inclusion of Fifth Reason members Marco Nicosia and Marty Marteen provided a more competent counterbalance to Wead's twisted, diabolic riffing, all anchored with Billy St. John's effective kit crashing.

The trade off here is that the increased competence comes at the expense of the debut's very dark atmosphere. This isn't exactly bright as daisies, mind you, but while the honest, direct studio recording here is a more polished presentation, it lacks for some of the crushing weight heard earlier. Thankfully, the compositions are still quite good, Wead sailing across the frets with a number of stellar leads and biting thrash riffs in "The House of Lies", "The Eternal Nightmare" and "Prime Evil". Often the band will remind me heavily of their near neighbors Artillery, not ever achieving the level of perfect technical fluency that the brothers manifested on By Inheritance, but quite close to the riffing of a Terror Squad. There's not really a bad song among this bunch, and the two instrumental briefs are pretty nice, while the epic finale "At the Edge of Eternity", which clocks in at over 13 minutes, is quite deft at perking the listener's attention and never falling into the sinkhole of ennui that most overblown, long winded metal compositions are guilty of perpetuating.

Its easiest to categorize The Edge of Eternity as a thrash metal record, because for the largest fraction of its playtime it delivers powerful muted rhythms and fairly complex composition, but I think it might also hold an appeal to fans of darker, late 80s/90s power or progressive metal. Without sounding quite like any one band, the Hexenhaus crew channel a choice blend of Mercyful Fate, Artillery, Savatage, Heathen and Metal Church which is still a delight after 20 years. Its not the equal of the debut based solely on the fact it has less songs that burn their way straight to your mind, but its still worth a listen if you've never been exposed to their sound in the past. Its unfortunate this band never made the splash it could have, because all four of their albums are high quality despite the numerous lineup shifts, and they certainly deserved some recognition amidst the bailing masses of weak willed 'thrash' bands who abandoned ship completely to start funk, grunge, nu-metal and college indie rock outfits.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (I am the captor forever to be)

Hexenhaus - A Tribute to Insanity (1988)

Let me get the obvious out of the way here. Yes, the Hexenhaus debut album has the same cover painting as Morbid Angel's Blessed of the Sick. Yes, Hexenhaus used it first.

A Tribute to Insanity is one of the first good Swedish thrash albums, before even Presage to Disaster by Midas Touch. The album has a dark and brutal edge to it which is far more punishing than a lot of other thrash metal, yet there is nothing really complex about what they do here. No tricks and no surprises, it's simply the audio equivalent to a good hard knuckle duster. Of note is Mike Wead's involvement with the band, you can definitely hear a Mercyful Fate likeness to some of the riffing, although the vocals are nowhere close, original singer Nick Johansson has a very cruel sounding style which really elevates the music.

"Eaten Alive" is a sick fucking track, a total Swedish thrashing classic, beautifully evil and down right mean sounding. If you were out in the street and a bunch of guys started coming at you in ripped up jeans and leather and they were mouthing the words to this song, you would run really fast in the other direction. Amazing, but it's not the only song here to kick some ass. "Delirious" is a dark song with some sinister leads. "Incubus" is speed metal with a heavy Mercyful Fate to the riffing. "Death Walks Among Us" starts with a ripping lead and features a delightfully dark verse with numerous riffs. "Requiem" will have every non poseur banging their goddamn heads until they bleed from the fore.

The mix here is really repressed sounding, clunky and grim, yet the leads slice on through the fog with all their glory. A lot of people might not be into the tone, but I personally love it, as it forms a nice bridge between the dirty thrash and the more classy NWOBHM sound that likely influenced the band members. A Tribute to Insanity is still my favorite album from Hexenhaus, though the second album The Edge of Eternity is also pretty good. A monument of pure thrash terror, and still sounds cruel to this day.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

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