999,910: Angel Witch - Angel Witch

Proudly following in the footsteps of bands like Black Sabbath, Motorhead, and Iron Maiden by naming both an album AND song after their band, Angel Witch is one of the lesser-known lights of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Adorning their artwork with all sorts of occult trappings, and writing largely about angels, witches (go figure), and assorted supernatural shit, Angel Witch positioned themselves as arguably the most “evil” band of the entire movement -- save for Venom, who single-handedly invented black metal by playing their instruments poorly and yelling about Satan. Angel Witch’s posturing seems fairly tame nowadays, given everything that’s followed in the realm of extreme metal, but in 1980 this was as dark as it got, and the music was good enough for their first album to hold up very well.

Like so much early-‘80s metal that dabbled in dimestore Satanism for marketing purposes, the song “Angel Witch” isn’t really about the occult; upon closer examination, the titular lady is merely an angel because the singer loves her, and a witch for not returning his love. But in the context of a fast-paced awesome heavy metal song where the chorus is the easiest part to understand, the distinction is lost; it sounds like it must be about evil. The association is already there, and the band is just playing coyly with it, maintaining plausible deniability. Sort of like how I used the technically correct phrase “titular lady” a few sentences ago.

There’s one musical moment, however, that inadvertently dispels all the carefully crafted mystique. Having piled on the fist-pumping riffs and choruses and almost-precise solos, the band opts for a breakdown about 2½ minutes in. And who sings this chorus? Not lead singer Kevin Heybourne. Not Lucifer. Not the titular witch. It’s a gang of heavily accented, melody-impaired Britons, shouting along like they’re at a football match. Sonically, it’s as if the band took time out from conjuring open the very gates of Hell to round up all the yobs getting pissed at the pub down the street from the recording studio. And suddenly we’ve got a completely different picture of who Angel Witch really is. It isn’t really time for Satan to reap souls with his wicked sorcery – it’s time to hoist a pint. Which, in the end, is kind of lovable.