Witchfynde - Cloak & Dagger (1983)^{Release ID: 5235}

I have a fair amount of time for both of Witchfynde's duo of 1980 albums, “Give ‘Em Hell” & “Stagefright”. Particularly “Give ‘Em Hell” with it’s darker atmosphere, occult themes & more progressive & psychedelic musical direction. “Stagefright” saw Witchfynde diluting their sound with a more commercially accessible hard rock edge & that didn’t go down well with fans & was pretty poorly received overall. Perhaps too harshly in my opinion though as it certainly has its moments & the highlight tracks are strong enough to carry the weaker material for mine.

Unfortunately for the band though they experienced a major lineup change shortly afterwards with vocalist Steve Bridges electing to leave the band in order to give him the time to deal with some personal issues & this led to the recruitment of replacement Luther Beltz (which is not his real name it has to said). Luther possessed a vastly different voice to Bridges & Witchfynde’s “Cloak & Dagger” album highlights just how big an impact that would have on the band’s sound. Luther seems to be trying his level best to imitate Judas Priest’s Rob Halford a lot of the time. He clearly doesn’t possess the extraordinary vocal skills to pull that off but when he gets things right I find myself enjoying the better songs for similar reasons to those that I enjoy classic Priest. They’re catchy & unintimidating singalong metal tunes for the most part with Witchfynde’s musical direction seemingly having followed Luther’s vocal approach & sounding much more like the more commercially focused Judas Priest material of the time. Luther also throws in some King Diamond style falsetto screams here & there which have clearly been influenced by Mercyful Fate. Ironically I’ve long suspected that Mercyful Fate were influenced by early Witchfynde so things seem to have gone the full circle there. Unfortunately Luther doesn’t get things right often enough to make for a consistently engaging listen & his weaker performances inevitably line up with the weaker tracks on the album.

The progressive & psychedelic leanings of their early days have been completely pushed aside & there’s a stronger hard rock component to Witchfynde’s sound now. “Give ‘Em Hell” possessed the eerie atmosphere of Black Sabbath’s early albums but “Cloak & Dagger” sounds a lot like Sabbath’s more hard rock driven late 70’s material & I don’t consider that to be a good thing to be honest. The production is very much standard NWOBHM fare with a clear but somewhat dirty sound. It’s probably their best sounding record to date but I wouldn’t say that it’s a major step up. Having said all that there are a few great metal songs on offer & the more metal material is clearly stronger than the rockier & more radio-friendly tracks but there isn’t enough overall consistency to demand repeat listens. The end result is that this is the first Witchfynde record that I find to be a disappointment & I’d suggest giving it a miss.