Witchfinder General
Friends of Hell

The 1640s were certainly not a period of prosperity and peace for England, involved from 1642 to 1648 in the English Revolution. During that same period, Matthew Hopkins operated, a wicked and unscrupulous man who, richly rewarded, roamed the British isle accusing innocent women of witchcraft, solely to increase his profits, exploiting the beliefs and superstitions of the English rural class.
The third film by director Michael Reeves indeed tells the story of Matthew Hopkins and all the evils he committed for personal gain.
The film, released in Italy as “Il Grande Inquisitore”, bears the original name Witchfinder General.

This was surely the inspiration for the quartet from Stourbridge that stands fully in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a genre that developed from the early 1980s in England which included a vast multitude of bands that did not necessarily share the same playing style but rather the geographic area of origin, the British Isles (Just think of a random band, like Iron Maiden, who musically had almost nothing in common with Venom, for example, but still were part of the said musical movement).
“Friends Of Hell” is the second studio album by Witchfinder General, an album that saw the light in 1983 right after “Death Penalty” and, in general, represents a continuation of the discourse started by its predecessor.
We are faced with a Heavy Metal of good quality with strong Doom nuances that undoubtedly bring Witchfinder General closer to the legendary Black Sabbath: heavy sounds, dark and grim atmospheres, combined, however, with sustained, aggressive rhythms, more “Heavy Metal” in nature, unlike St. Vitus for example, who, very similar to Black Sabbath, also took the Doom Metal path, and to the dark sounds and extremely low tones they combined slow, rhythmic cadences, evoking sensations of oppression, tension, anguish in the listener, just like Sabbath.

Witchfinder General thus presents themselves as a perfect blend between the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, the post-Black Sabbath Doom of St. Vitus, and the Black Sabbath themselves. Just think about “Quietus Reprise”, where the influence of Iommi and his bandmates is stronger than ever, particularly in the opening riff, the distorted central arpeggio, and partly also in the vocal lines that tend to faintly imitate Ozzy Osbourne, especially at the start of the song.
The lineup was in 1983 formed by singer Zeeb Parkes, equipped with a decent voice, a good rhythm section with Graham Ditchfield on drums and Rod Hawkes on bass, while on guitar was an inspired Phil Cope who shaped high-quality riffs with his six-string, maintaining a primarily blues setup for the solos, as almost all Hard Rock/Heavy Metal guitarists did.
All tracks were written by Cope and Parkes, except for “Love On Smack”, one of the better chapters of the album, written with the collaboration of bassist Rod Hawkes.

I consider the work, analyzing the tracks contained, to be heterogeneous and varied. Pieces fully reflecting the characteristics anticipated earlier are certainly not rare, such as the beautiful “Love On Smack”, full of valid solos, with a fair variety of riffs, or “Quietus Reprise”, very Sabbath-esque, is also characterized by a whirlwind of riffs and furthermore interspersed with two arpeggios, one distorted (as mentioned earlier) and one on acoustic guitar, extremely relaxing so much that it stands out tremendously from Cope's charged distortion, providing an unexpected break and a moment of pause from the track's listening.

But while listening to the enjoyable 36 minutes, it is also possible to encounter more catchy songs like “Music”, equipped with a very catchy chorus that sticks in the mind from the first listen (“I need music, Oh yeah I do; I need music, every day”). It is important to dwell in this case also on the lyrics which deviate from Witchfinder General's canon themes lingering in line with Black Sabbath: the dark, gloomy, lead-like texts reflect their music, endowed with the same characteristics. Therefore, lyrics like those in “Music”, an anthem to the beauty of music, which becomes a necessary need for man, may appear anomalous even though a closer reading can identify a slight vein of pessimism, especially in the contrast between the initial statement (“Dreamt of making records”) and the one that concludes the song (“Now I know that writing music we will die”).

The three songs mentioned so far are, in my opinion, the most successful, the creative and compositional peak of the album; however, “Last Chance” and “Requiem For Youth” are also decent and worthy of mention with their compelling and engaging riffs that bring them closer to the musical standards of Heavy Metal, compared to “Love On Smack”, “Music”, and “Quietus Reprise”, in which the influence of seventies Hard Rock is more evident. This influence can also be found in “Shadowed Images” another song that owes much to the very first Black Sabbath.
The remaining tracks that make up the work are the title track “Friends Of Hell” and the ballad “I Lost You”, which transforms into music a text based on the promiscuity between the theme of love and feelings of anguish, dismay, and affliction, somewhat like the already described opening track “Love On Smack”.
However, these last two did not captivate my attention enough to be etched in my memory, and therefore they rank, in my modest and personal opinion, a step below the other pieces of the album.

In general, therefore, we can consider this “Friends Of Hell” a decent, rather well-executed album, that finds its strengths in the heterogeneity of the songs that compose the platter, as already mentioned, and in having proposed a hybrid genre between the Heavy Metal of the New Wave and Doom, which, after the success of Black Sabbath (who were the main inspirers of this new subgenre) began to spread and influence several bands. Witchfinder General undoubtedly stands out in the panorama of other contemporary and compatriot bands dedicated to the same genre and probably deserved more success and notoriety than they achieved during their career. The album is recommended to anyone who particularly appreciates the early Sabbath (Ozzy era) and also finds fascination in the varied and multifaceted sound of the numerous bands that made up the new wave of British Heavy Metal.