El Salvadoran blackened death/thrash metal band WITCHGÖAT have announced December 4 as the release date for their third studio album, “Serpent Hordes.” Recorded in 2025, the album arrives in the band’s 10th anniversary year, bringing together key elements from their earlier work with traditional speed metal influences.

“Serpent Hordes” took shape after WITCHGÖAT reassessed their musical direction in 2024. While retaining the elements that had defined their previous releases, the band focused on developing their compositional approach, giving greater prominence to guitar solos, and incorporating traditional speed metal influences into their sound. The new album emerged from taking this approach into the studio in 2025.

The band’s musical path began in 2016, when guitarist P. Scyther conceived the idea of forming a new group. His goal was to combine the rawness of the South American and European thrash metal scenes of the 1980s with the dark melodies of first- and second-wave Scandinavian blackened death metal and black metal. With M. Miasma joining the project, the foundations of the band’s occult-themed lyrical and artistic approach were also established.

WITCHGÖAT released the “Umbra Regit” demo in 2018, followed shortly afterward by their debut album, “Egregors of the Black Faith.” Recorded in 2022 and released in late 2023, “Altars of Necromancy” pushed the band’s sound further toward a more direct black metal direction, both compositionally and in terms of production.

With the new album, the band are revisiting the approach of their earlier period. The musical framework of “Serpent Hordes” draws on influences from bands such as SWORDMASTER, DISSECTION, LORD BELIAL, CROWN OF THORNS, CARDINAL SIN, and RAISE HELL, alongside a thrash metal approach reminiscent of KREATOR’s “Pleasure to Kill” era. The album’s central aim is to bring these different references together within WITCHGÖAT’s own identity.

The album’s title track, ‘Serpent Hordes’, has already been released. The song can be heard via Personal Records’ Bandcamp page. Preorder information for the album is also available here.

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“Serpent Hordes” will be released on December 4 via Personal Records on CD. Morbid Skull Records will handle the cassette edition.

The album’s tracklist is as follows:

  1. ‘Echoes from the Abyss’ (Intro)

  2. ‘Ophidian Will’

  3. ‘Serpent Hordes’

  4. ‘Lesser Shadows’

  5. ‘Necrophiliac Fever’

  6. ‘Requiem for Myself’

  7. ‘Deceivers of the Crucifix’

  8. ‘Storming the Walls of Eternity’

  9. ‘Nyctophiliac’

  10. ‘In the Fog’ (Outro)

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