WITCH RIPPER are back and so is the dark story these US metal innovators present to all those ready to listen. Their new music video ‘The Portal’ offers a glimpse of a sinister cult and serves as the first advance single from their forthcoming third album “Through the Hourglass”, which will be revealed on April 10, 2026.
WITCH RIPPER comment on ‘The Portal’: “We really wanted to set the tone of Through the Hourglass with a bang”, vocalist and guitarist Curtis Parker writes. “A pummeling drum intro, knuckle-dragger riffs and highlighting more evil melodies on the guitar. ‘The Portal’ kicks off an album with darker themes of loss, confusion, and dread while maintaining our love of big hooks and catchy riffs. Our story’s main character asks: ‘What have I woken up to?’ – and we’re all about to find out!”
Tracklist
- Odyssey in Retrograde
- The Portal
- Symmetry of the Hourglass
- Echoes and Dust
- The Clock Queen
- Proxima Centuari
- The Spiral Eye
On their third full-length, “Through the Hourglass”, WITCH RIPPER unleash the full potential of their stunning ability to deliver captivating melodies, catchy riffs, and merciless hooks in sheer droves.
The US metal band perfectly combines melodic heaviness with pinches of progressive, sludge, and other styles with seeming ease. WITCH RIPPER can be generally located within the wider sonic realm that is inhabited by MASTODON, BARONESS, and HIGH ON FIRE, yet they also continue to channel the rock bombast of QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE as well as the modern prog of COHEED AND CAMBRIA and MUSE.
While WITCH RIPPER’s songwriting has climbed to a new peak, they continue with their loving pastiche of the legendary pulp science fiction stories of old. “Through the Hourglass” extends the story that began on their sophomore full-length, “The Flight after the Fall” (2023), in which the central character’s search for peace in death by flying into a black hole proved futile. As “Through the Hourglass” begins, he awakens to a world without time and a familiar dark presence from his past…
Line-up
Chad Fox – guitar, vocals
Brian Kim – bass, vocals
Curtis Parker – guitar, vocals
Joe Eck – drums
Links
www.facebook.com/witchripper
www.instagram.com/witch_ripper
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