Interview by Kris Peters
Melbourne industrial titans Witchgrinder released their highly anticipated third album, Nothing Stays Buried.
Once more revolving around horror and the macabre, Nothing Stays Buried is a meaty slab of intent from the Australian outfit, furthering the promise shown on Witchgrinder's two earlier albums but magnifying it even further.
Since the release of their debut album in 2013, Witchgrinder have systematically built up a loyal and growing fan base, scoring support slots to the likes of Ministry, Rob Zombie, Ghost, Wednesday 13, Powerman 5000, Sevendust and Drowning Pool before landing the covetted opening spot for Static X last year. The band have honed and refined their live show to reflect both their music and influences, creating an overwhelming sense of dread and foreboding that perfectly accentuates the sonic blast of agression elicited by their music.
With Nothing Stays Buried unleashed on the public, frontman Travis Everett took the time to talk with HEAVY, discussing the album in greater detail.
"This album took a while to write," he measured. "Actually, the writing didn't take so long, what it was, is there was a large gap in between from the lat album due to line-up changes and covid. Witchgrinder had a nice touring line-up, but nothing put together where I felt comfortable writing and getting back in and doing the third album. Of course, I had a lot of stuff put away with riffs over the years, but I never started really structuring anything together. With this album I looked at what the previous two had done… I had time to talk to a lot of people who listened to Witchgrinder over the years - alot of new fans and a lot of old ones - and worked out what they liked best from the first album and the second album. What songs were their favourite and what weren't. We really sat - especially me and the guitarist Scott - we sat down and spoke about what style of song we wanted one to be. We'd pick one of the old ones off the album and say we kind of want it a bit like this, but we want this one rockier. We want this one more thrash metal. But we still wanted to keep the Witchgrinder sound."
In the full interview, Travis talks more about the writing process for Nothing Stays Buried, the musical direction of the album, the band's upcoming tour plus he runs us through each track on Nothing Stays Buried in greater depth.