From the mean streets of Gary, Indiana by way of Oslo, Norway (or maybe the other way around- we’re not sure) comes Witch Taint, the most extremely extreme and Satanic Norwegian Black Metal band from Indiana ever probably and you can ask anyone.

While the origins of Witch Taint remain hazy, even to the members themselves, there is at least some evidence of the band’s existence dating back as far as late 2004, when Witch Taint founder Lance the King of Black Metal and About 500 Other Things Most People Can’t Handle (rumored to actually be comedian and musician Dave Hill) began emailing a mysterious man name Saittham, managing director of a Norwegian Black Metal record label in Oslo called Planet Satan Revolution, in hopes of securing a record contract (Read their legendary, full and 100% real email correspondence for yourself at www.theblackmetaldialogues.com) despite the fact that he had yet to record any music. However, we also know a version of the band consisting of Lance and his sworn enemy, Oslo native Matthias Backwards (rumored to actually be musician and comedian Phil Costello), began performing live as a duo in 2017, reading the aforementioned emails and playing a select few songs during sold out appearances at SXSW, in London and Oslo (where none other than Fenriz from Norwegian Black Metal legends Darkthrone was in the front row), and at the 2018 Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. These shows were awesome and a lot of members of the audience had to receive counseling both during and immediately following the show because it was so extreme, brutal, and occasionally foul in odor.

Anyway, after noticing the largely German-speaking audience at Wacken seemed to prefer their music over their talking, Lance and Matthias began recording the full-length debut Witch Taint album in earnest as soon as they got back to America. By this time, interest in Witch Taint had grown so much that none other than author Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, etc.) dedicated an entire episode of his Revisionist History and Broken Record to the Witch Taint story.

This past spring, Witch Taint began performing as a full, six-member live band (consisting mostly of members found in the darkest recesses of Craigslist) that is so extreme, brutal, grim, unholy, kvlt, and just sort of negative in general that most people can’t even handle it basically even if everyone agrees the Witch Taint T-shirts are pretty awesome and they should really consider keeping more mediums in stock but whatever.

The band’s full-length debut Sons of Midwestern Darkness, recorded entirely in darkness in a damp room that was also annoyingly cold even if you wore a coat and a hat and stuff the whole time, is set to be released by New York City’s Tee Pee Records in early 2020. The album is extremely difficult to listen to in all the best ways and features guest appearances from members of such not-nearly-as-extreme-as-Witch Taint bands as Venom, Carpathian Forest, and Autopsy and also Lance’s dog Lucifuge because they forgot to keep the basement door shut even though she will end up coming down there every single time no matter what. Sons of Midwestern Darkness is a twelve-song collection of extremely grim yet very catchy and danceable heavy metal anthems that are perfect to get hammered and sing along to with all your closest friends and enemies. There are also five extremely extreme interludes where Lance and Matthias Backwards basically school motherfuckers on various topics, which is awesome. If you think you can handle it, which- statistically speaking anyway- you probably can’t, please get yourself a copy. And by all means, come see the band live (where Lance and Matthias will be joined by the destructive tendencies of opera diva La Sinistra, bassist Dean Ripper, guitarist Thomas Guillotine, and drummist Markus St. Bastard).However, whether you decide to kill yourself, go sit in a ditch for a while, or simply stare of into the distance for a disturbingly long amount of time as a result of having done either one of these things, that is not Witch Taint’s f$cking problem. Also, Witch Taint has a website at www.witchtaint.com, so there’s that too.