Witch Club Satan are the best thing to happen in black metal in years. Furious, unflinching and utterly incendiary to behold, they take the genre's penchant for transgression to its logical end with a glorious blend of theatricality, pomp and pure, visceral nastiness that bridges old school champions like Darkthrone and Immortal with more modern, outspoken branches of BM embodied in the likes of Dawn Ray'd or Underdark.
It's fitting that their first UK show would be at Birmingham's Supersonic Festival, an event with a storied history of boundary-pushing acts. There's a buzz in the O2 Institute even before the Norwegians take to the stage, and when they make an appearance its to the throat-rending howls of Birth. With frost-tipped riffs and blast-beats delivered with a vigour and intensity that calls to mind the Platonic ideal for what black metal should be; a raging tempest of pure emotion and fang-bearing venom.
