Reviews list for Warlock - Burning the Witches (1984)

1984's “Burning The Witches” album represents the debut studio outing from Dusseldorf five-piece heavy metal outfit Warlock. Many of you would probably already be aware of the band through the popularity of their gorgeous blonde front-woman Doro Pesch who was somewhat of a sex symbol for many a teenage metalhead back when I was a kid. In fact, I had at least one poster of Doro on my bedroom wall when I was in my early high school years along with more than one of former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford. I had a serious crush on both of those young ladies & looking back now it’s pretty amazing just how dated those photos look today. You won’t find too many images that represent the 80’s better than those to be honest but WTF… it WAS the 80’s so why should that matter??

Warlock released four studio albums between 1984 & 1987 with “Burning The Witches” being the most raw & youthful of them. The production job is pretty good for a debut release with the vocals & drums being the most up-front in the mix & the 80’s style metal guitar sound doing the job nicely. The only obvious negative is a poor snare sound which sounds a lot like the bottom of a bucket & is too high in the mix which makes it stand out quite noticeably. I’d encourage you not to focus on it because it can get annoying if you let it (but you almost certainly will now so sorry about that).

The musicianship is all fairly basic with the rhythm section keeping things very open so that the vocal hooks & guitar riffs have enough room to really dig their teeth in. The drumming can be a bit flat at times & could do with a little more excitement about it while the guitar solos are well executed but lack a little bit in the identity department. But the main focal point here is obviously Doro & her vocal delivery is both powerful & engaging. The strength of WASP’s Blackie Lawless often springs to mind as she really does achieve her goal of competing on the same level as her male counterparts. And when you combine her considerable vocal talents with the obvious sex appeal factor it’s not hard to see why Warlock were reasonably popular,specially in Europe.

There are plenty of high quality metal riffs here with Judas Priest, Accept & the NWOBHM being the main sources of inspiration but while “Burning The Witches” falls comfortably into the category of meat & potatoes heavy metal it certainly isn’t lacking in variety. You’ll hear everything from speed metal numbers to boogie-oriented hard rockers to a particularly cheesy ballad that’s the obvious weak point of the album. Scorpions have clearly had an influence on Warlock during some of those less metal moments which isn’t surprising for a German outfit. The lyrics definitely aren’t a strength for the band as they’ve opted to deliver them in English which has resulted in a pretty basic & unintelligent sounding result that’s not all that uncommon for the time.

Look, I know I’ve presented a lot of negative comments here but I actually quite like “Burning The Witches”. This is pure heavy metal highlighted by a talented vocalist & some simple but high quality metal riffs & it’s all presented in an easily palatable format. What’s not to like really? If you enjoy Priest & Accept then you’ll probably like this quite a bit too although the lack of any genuinely classic highlight songs will always leave it sitting behind the big names of the genre. Doro has since gone on to a long & fairly successful solo career but Warlock was the initial vehicle that helped her kick off her career & she still includes Warlock songs in her setlists today. In fact, she probably would have continued on under that moniker if not for the threat of legal action from ex-band members.