Thirty years after unleashing their self-titled debut, Fulda’s own WITCHBURNER are back with “Black Raging Flames”, their eighth full-length, due September 04, 2026 via Diabolic Might Records on vinyl, CD and – courtesy of Destruktion Records – tape. For a band that’s been flying the German Black / Thrash flag since 1992, this isn’t a comeback so much as a resurfacing: as the group itself has been quick to point out, this is no reunion. They never actually went anywhere. Line-up continuity with 2013’s “Bloodthirsty Eyes” – Simon Seegel and Michael “Mächel” Frank on guitars, Andy Süss on bass, Felix Darnieder on drums and Pino Hecker handling vocals – has simply been interrupted by the kind of mundane chaos that derails so many bands: the pandemic years, illness and, almost poetically for a band this unpretentious, a flooded rehearsal room. The twelve-year gap between records makes ‘By Chains Severed’ the album’s first single and lyric video, feel like a genuine event rather than routine promotion. It’s the first new WITCHBURNER material since 2013 and its release alone signals that the band picked up exactly where they left off rather than trying to reinvent themselves for a new decade. Recorded once again at Rekordz Studio in Lauterbach with Mächel Frank handling production, mixing and mastering, the album keeps things in-house in a way that fits a band whose whole identity has always been about doing things the old, unfussy way. The cover artwork comes from Jowita Kaminska-Peruzzi, whose credits with EXODUS, MANILLA ROAD and ENFORCER already tell you what visual register to expect: classic, weathered, unmistakably Thrash. The ten-track listing – opening with ‘Richtschwert’ and closing on the tongue-in-cheek ‘One Million Beers’ – includes nine new originals plus a cover of the song ‘Too Fast For Hell’ by German Speed Metal gods VECTOM! Given WITCHBURNER’S history and the reputation they’ve built on records like “Blood Of Witches” and “Bloodthirsty Eyes” as purveyors of raw, unpolished Teutonic Thrash in the vein of early KREATOR, SODOM and early SLAYER, “Black Raging Flames” arrives with a fairly clear promise: no trend-chasing, no reinvention, just another dispatch from a band that has quietly outlasted most of its flashier contemporaries by refusing to change! Be sure to check them out at www.facebook.com/witchburner and the label at www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100060886584223