Valhalla Lights are gearing up to release their new album in April but are giving fans an early taste with the single "Hammer The Witch". To celebrate we asked vocalist Ange Saul to tell us about the song. Here is the story:
Hammer The Witch was always going to be one of the more special songs on the record. Hammer The Witch is a heavy and melodic tale set to the dark and primitive history of religion and the infamous 'Crusades' and a book called the 'Malleus Maleficarum'. This dogmatic and menacing book, supported by the religion of the day, instructed people to murder those that were accused of witchcraft by burning them at the stake. With masses blindly controlled by fear and hypnotized into violence, men, women and children were falsely accused and put to a horrible death.
The fear that this book instilled had the power to lead people astray, which resonates with the modern world and contemporary man through the mass media mayhem that tries to oppress and control us all today.
How did the writing of this song begin? I guess the song was born when I was listening on my headphones to a riff that George had sent me which was one of many riffs flying around, but this one stood out. It was at this time that the title 'Hammer the witch' struck me with the intensity of a lightning bolt. Upon first hearing it, I fell in love and I instantly had the energy to write a song that I'd always wanted to write. This riff for me represented something different, a brand new entity, how I felt, a collage of ideas that had been dying to be told..
This riff led me down a path of thought provoking history that I'd never encompassed previously, and it is a history that seems to be repeating itself today. I think this song and it's underlining depths, strongly resonate with the current global and political arena.
This song is our own interpretation of a story that has direct correlations to our contemporary world, a world where people are becoming more and more divided in their beliefs, clinging onto tired dogmas, problematic constructs, and blindly following what they are told to believe.
It's a funny feeling to be now looking back at the beginning of its progression. The first riff, the first words 'Hammer the witch'. When those words hit me, I knew the song was writing itself, almost like a ghost was whispering into my ear about a history needing to be told. It was an out of body experience of a moment, that still resonates with everyone in the band when listening to the finished song..
To see it develop from a riff and melody, into something so powerful, is just amazing..
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!
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