Return of the Witchfinder

When deciding whether or not to listen to German band Attic, you really only have to ask yourself one question: How much do you love Mercyful Fate and the solo work of singer King Diamond? Because on their first two albums, Attic were to Mercyful Fate/King Diamond as Airbourne are to AC/DC — so loving and faithful a tribute as to verge on cover-band territory. And that’s not an entirely damning criticism, really: King Diamond is a legend in metal because his vocals are both instantly recognizable and seemingly impossible to imitate. His theatricality and unearthly falsetto make Ronnie James Dio sound like Lemmy. So for Attic’s frontman Meister Cagliostro to be able to hit those same skyscraping high notes at all is an achievement not to be discounted. But on Return Of The Witchfinder — the third Attic album, and their first in seven years — their music has evolved. Slightly, but noticeably. The twin guitar leads and solos, and the prominent bass, sound more like Iron Maiden at their ’80s peak than like Mercyful Fate, and some riffs here (“The Thief’s Candle”) have an almost black metal bite. On “Hailstorm and Tempest,” drummer J.P. (who’s also in the black metal band Paria) can be heard playing actual blast beats. Cagliostro’s voice continues to be a genuinely uncanny King Diamond impression most of the time, but at a few points he delivers dramatic recitations that bring to mind Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. This is the album on which Attic have graduated from just doing the thing they love to having a style of their own, and they’ve written some genuinely headbang-worthy songs in the process.