Witch King - Conjuration of Bestial Forces (2013)

   Previously it was mentioned that war metal is a style in which it's difficult to fail if a band keeps its strict rules and borders. But that doesn't mean that it would be easy to play war metal, it definitely requires skilled musicians. 

   It's a lesson that probably had to learned by Witch King in a hard way. The band's intentions about the genre were clear even by the visuals, and they did try to sound as devastating as possible, however, they haven't been enough skilled to do that on the required level. That suggests young band members who have been strongly inspired by the roughest direction of black metal, but it could have been too early for them to get dropped themselves into the whole thing, or their productiveness haven't been sufficient. Lower productivity usually leads to practice less, to play live less, and then improvement goes slower, or there's no improvement at all, like in case of many younger European black metal bands. Fortunately Witch King did improve themselves eventually, and later on they've released a decent full-length album, but the whole progress of evolvement went slower than usual. "Conjuration of Bestial Forces" musically was more like on a level of rehearsal demo records as the following step after jamming. It does include promising ideas and intentions, also it could be sensed, that the band catched the right feeling and attitude, but they simply haven't been ready yet. 

   For war metal fans it might be still an EP worthy to add into the collection, since it could serve as a document of the first steps of a war metal band.