{"id":690318,"date":"2026-06-07T19:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690318\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:41:09","slug":"witching-hour-descending-where-time-has-ceased-to-exist-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/690318\/","title":{"rendered":"Witching Hour – Descending… Where Time Has Ceased to Exist Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"German black\/thrash\/heavy metal trio Witching Hour return for your soul, eight long years since their last outburst …and Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon. Alongside contemporaries like Nocturnal<\/a>, Cruel Force<\/a>, and Manzer, Witching Hour\u2019s recent output has been well-received by critics and audiences alike. This puts the upcoming Decending\u2026 Where Time Has Ceased to Exist, Witching Hour\u2019s fourth release in 20 years, in a prime position to compete well in its field. Will Descent\u2026 lead to greatness or will Witching Hour fumble the landing?<\/p>\n

In some ways, they\u2019ve threatened both. Witching Hour are an incredibly talented bunch, deftly straddling fences between black metal char, heavy metal righteousness, and thrash metal vitriol. Descending\u2026\u2019s warm and natural tones enhance these qualities, presenting a product that is easy on the ear while deadly to the spine. Songs build around long-form structures, with the shortest cut measuring over six minutes (not counting the fluffy instrumental intro), but overall runtime slots in at a tight 43 minutes. This makes repeat listens easy to approach. Sounds like everything is in place to secure a high score on the board, right?<\/p>\n

Descending \u2026 Where Time Has Ceased To Exist by Witching Hour<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the songwriting lets Descending\u2026 down. Witching Hour\u2019s latest epic suffers the same flaw as its predecessor: a lack of compositional dynamics and an overabundance of recycled parts. Each song taken out of the whole makes a compelling case. \u201cWhere Time Has Ceased to Exist\u201d sets the bar quite high for the rest of the record, churning with a heavy metal swagger and roaring with spirit through epic leads, scorching tremolos, and thrashy switch-ups. Similarly, \u201cProfane Resurrection of a Presumed Dead\u201d hooks its claws into the brain with an insidious chorus bark and fiery guitar and percussion work. However, when unified as a whole, it\u2019s all too easy to interchange phrases and measures between songs without fragmenting the experience. I can place my mark on two opposite sides\u2014and stick a couple more pins in the center\u2014and the same riffing motif, similar leads and flourishes, suspiciously familiar vocal runs, and the exact same bass-snare alternation greet me.<\/p>\n

\"\"Doubly damning, epic 11-minute closer \u201c\u2026and Then Came the Flames\u201d showcases all of these issues in a microcosm, establishing a concise summary of everything heard thus far. And just like the others, taken out of the album context, the song rocks. Reminiscent of the same kind of grand, hellish adventure that B\u00fctcher so gloriously captures on 666 Goats Carry My Chariot<\/a>, \u201c\u2026and Then Came the Flames\u201d feels complete, exciting, and wild, at least at first. As the track progresses, recycled parts and pieces cheapen the experience until I\u2019m desperate to jump off the boat as it reaches shore. This mirrors my experience with the album as a whole. Fun and entertaining in the initial throes, it becomes a slog to get through in remarkably short order. By the time the closer wraps up, I\u2019ve heard multiple iterations of the same ideas, spliced and arranged to deceive me into believing, if only for a moment, that I could pick any of these songs (minus the opener proper) out of a lineup without a cheat sheet.<\/p>\n

Confounding as it is, Witching Hour represents a clash between having great ideas and writing songs that don\u2019t adequately support or develop them. Instead, Descending\u2026 drops their best work into a sea of repetitive structures and monotonous bloat in the hopes that observers might then discern and appreciate them. With at least a half dozen spins under my belt at the time of writing, I did indeed find worthy gems to take home\u2014and when isolated from the collection, those gems really sparkle. However, those rewards don\u2019t quite justify the expanse of fluff and drag that bog Descending\u2026 down. In another world where Witching Hour invoked a greater variety of techniques, tempos, and textures to fortify their compositions and bring reliability to excitement, this record would\u2019ve been a barnburner. As it is, it never truly catches fire, and leaves me wanting.<\/p>\n

Rating: Disappointing\u2026
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb\/s mp3
Label: Dying Victims Productions<\/a>
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: May 22nd, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German black\/thrash\/heavy metal trio Witching Hour return for your soul, eight long years since their last outburst …and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[101728,54639,9676,299662,68110,299663,299664,46865,88,59898,25605,299665,267222,216,55104,899,900,46895,299666],"class_list":["post-690318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2-0","tag-54639","tag-black-metal","tag-black-thrash","tag-butcher","tag-cruel-force","tag-decending-where-time-has-ceased-to-exist","tag-dying-victims-productions","tag-entertainment","tag-german-metal","tag-heavy-metal","tag-manzer","tag-may26","tag-music","tag-nocturnal","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-thrash-metal","tag-witching-hour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}