FEATURE: Spotlight: Witch Fever — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Fieber

Witch Fever

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I realise that this awesome band…

have been on the scene a while and one might not call them ‘rising’ or ‘new’. However, Witch Fever have some incredible gigs coming up and they have released a new single, THE GARDEN. The phenomenal Witch Fever are a band that I am fairly new to but have been struck by. They have also announced a new album will come out this Hallowe’en:

“Genre-defying four-piece Witch Fever signals a ferocious return with the announcement of their second full-length album, ‘FEVEREATEN,’ set for release on October 31, 2025, via Music For Nations / Sony. This highly anticipated follow-up promises a deeper, darker, and stranger evolution of their acclaimed sound.

Accompanying the album news, the band has unleashed the lead single and video, “THE GARDEN.” This brooding, cinematic track masterfully twists religious symbolism into a defiant anthem of liberation. It opens with a distorted alt-rock riff that ebbs and crashes like a tidal wave, with vocalist Amy Walpole subverting the Garden of Eden myth into a powerful rallying cry against patriarchal control. “THE GARDEN” follows their recent single, “DEAD TO ME!,” which hinted at their expanded, more experimental sound.

Since their formation in 2017, Witch Fever—comprising Amy Walpole (vocals/lyrics), Alex Thompson (bass), Alisha Yarwood (guitar), and Annabelle Joyce (drums)—has rapidly ascended within the UK alternative scene. Their 2022 debut, Congregation, garnered critical acclaim for its cathartic power and blistering intensity, fusing punk ferocity with gothic unease and raw vulnerability.

For ‘FEVEREATEN,’ the band collaborated with producer Chris W. Ryan (NewDad, Just Mustard). The result is a deliberate and expansive creative process, pushing their sound into uncharted territory. The record draws from metal, ambient, hardcore, and slowcore, layering cello, noise textures, and haunting melodies atop their signature pummeling foundation, capturing a band that has grown, sharpened its edges, and is poised for an impactful next chapter.

Of the album, and the single, the band state,

FEVEREATEN is raw, vulnerable, haunting and furious. Where our debut album Congregation dealt with my experience growing up in a Charismatic Christian church head on, FEVEREATEN takes a step back, finding horror in the subtleties of dealing with religious trauma, as well as mental health struggles, relationships and nearing 30 in a world that’s eating itself alive. Whilst the album is dark and unforgiving in places it is also heartfelt and joyful in others. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and asks you to find excitement and life in difficult times.

It was an absolute delight to write and record together. In the studio we bounced off our producer Chris’ excitement and ended up with a piece of work that we’re so proud of and excited to share. Chris is so talented and their enthusiasm for music and production is infectious. We hope it haunts you as it has haunted us, in a good way of course”.

Witch Fever are Amy, Alex, Alisha and Annabelle. I am looking forward to their sophomore album coming out. Following 2022’s Congregation, I think the amount Witch Fever have toured since then will add new dynamics and layers to their second album. FEVEREATEN is going to be an album you need to listen to. Witch Fever were among the artists who tackled and called out Download Festival (which ended yesterday) over their toilet policy. Initial guidelines and advice offered was that the festival would be “following the interim guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)” which “states that ‘trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities’”. This was rightly seen as creating division and stoking transphobia. That it was creating an unsafe environment for trans people and it was completely tone deaf. The festival rightly corrected their ignorance and said that the majority of toilets were now gender-neutral. It is sad that it had to come to that, but it shows that many festivals and sections of the music industry need to do better. On this Pride Month, it seems like a massive step backwards when it comes to trans inclusivity and recognition. The fact Witch Fever made their voices heard is another reason to respect them! Before wrapping things up, there are a couple of recent interviews that I am going to source from. I think there are various genes and sounds that are restricted to certain radio stations and do not really get more widespread focus. Maybe a station such as BBC Radio 6 Music would happily play Witch Fever (and have!), though I don’t know how many other mainstream stations will. Witch Fever are a sensational band that should get some big headline slots in the future.

Music Is to Blame chatted with Witch Fever’s lead, Amy Walpole. I was going to spotlight Witch Fever a few weeks back but there were no new interviews online. A couple have very recently popped up, so I am excited to spotlight them now. I predict massive things for this band:

“Culminated through mutual friends and a shared adoration for punk music, Witch Fever have made waves in the UK hardcore scene, and are currently gearing up for the release of their sophomore album.

Amy Walpole, lead vocalist, discusses upcoming tour plans, the surreal, career-altering experience of supporting My Chemical Romance and reveals her top three ‘desert island’ albums as part of the Seven Questions with Music Is To Blame Series.

Introduce yourself and where you’re from.

Hi! I’m Amy, the lead vocalist of Witch Fever. I am originally from near Bradford, but I’ve lived in Manchester for about 10 years now.

What do our readers need to know about you?

Readers should know that our music is very angry, and kind of intense but we’re all very nice and quite wholesome, and just trying to have a good time. My favourite animals are snails!

What have you got coming up that you’re most excited for?

We’ve got a tour at the end of the year with a band called Volbeat and a band called Bush, kind of a crazy line-up. Those guys are very metal and have been going for a very long time, but they’ve very kindly invited us on their tour and it’s two months of arenas. We’ve not done that before, we’ve done a stadium but never a tour of arenas which is amazing, so many bands dream to play venues like that so we feel super grateful that we can be doing that.

What’s the best run-in you’ve had with a fan?

Loads of them are so sweet! There is a couple of friends who’ve been to a few of our gigs and the first time we met them they were at the merch stand. I asked them how they know each other and they mentioned that they were at the same school, turns out they hadn’t been in school for about 10 years but they still talk about each other as if they’re still in school. I just thought that was so cute! I also had a girl give me a framed moth, which was so adorable and personal.

What’s been your biggest ‘I’ve made it’ moment so far?

It will probably be this tour at the end of the year, but we supported My Chemical Romance for one of their shows. I just couldn’t believe it. That was years ago now and so much has happened since then but that was a really pivotal moment, to be invited to play this massive stage with the most influential emo band. They gave us a shoutout on stage and I nearly died!

What are your three “desert island” albums?

‘The Lack Long After’ - Pianos Become The Teeth

‘I Got Heaven’ - Mannequin Pussy

‘Rage Against The Machine’ - Rage Against The Machine

Sum up your sound in three words.

Angry. Vulnerable. Cathartic”.

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I am going to finish off with a great interview from Kerrang!. Having previously awarded their 2022 debut album five-out-of-five, they were keen to catch up with Amy Walpole. I am wondering whether Witch Fever have been asked to play Later… with Jool Holland. I think they deserve it and would definitely add something different to the show! I also feel like there should be more people in the media looking their way. I am not sure what interviews are lined up, though I hope the likes of NME and The Guardian look their way:

“Very much a record primed to take them up a level or 10, it has already sent shockwaves with the fantastic lead single DEAD TO ME!. But this, it turns out, is only part of what they have in store this time.

“DEAD TO ME! was bridging a gap between our old album and the new album, but there’s stuff on FEVEREATEN that’s a little more experimental, a little less typical ‘riffy’,” Amy explains.

For proof, look no further than Witch Fever’s excellent new single THE GARDEN. Released today, it’s a spellbinding gothic ballad showcasing a whole new side to the band. Here, Amy tells us more about what to expect from their next chapter, including reappraisals of biblical figures, possible hauntings and the power of confronting a traumatic past head-on…

Amy, you have at your disposal a whole dictionary of existing words you could have named your new album after, but instead you’ve coined your own. What does the word FEVEREATEN mean to you?
“It has lots of different layers, but it’s a feeling of being consumed by something, and not being able to move past it or look past it. I like it because it can relate to mental health and it can relate to trauma, but [for me] it also relates to another idea. I grew up being told that God was all around me, constantly watching me for sin. So it plays on the idea that, for a lot of my life, I felt like I was being watched or haunted by something. I had never known whether it was my trauma, God, or something even more supernatural than God. I did a Master’s degree in English literature, but I specialised in horror and gothic fiction and I always felt like I could relate to characters like in, say, [Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s] The Yellow Wallpaper – women that had been diagnosed with hysteria, which was actually just a blanket umbrella term for any woman experiencing anything that a man didn’t like. I had an affinity with those women in films and books that were possessed and were ‘hysterical’. I just find it so fascinating. FEVEREATEN treads the line between my reality and fiction, as well. There are themes of hauntings, ghosts and stuff like that. There’s even a lyric about furniture in my house moving around…”

Your debut was incredibly candid in dealing with painful parts of your past. What do you think the Amy that created Congregation would make of these new lyrics on FEVEREATEN?

“I’m still the same person, but between then and now I’ve been diagnosed with autism, so I understand myself way more. I like myself way more, too – I know when I need support and I know why I need support, instead of not understanding why I’m struggling in a situation where everyone around me seems to not be struggling at all. I feel like I’ve grown up more, I’m more secure and less confused about myself. But also, a lot of Congregation was obviously about dealing with my experiences growing up as part of a church. In terms of writing lyrics [on Witch Fever’s debut], it was the first time I was really working through all that stuff, and I was like, ‘Fuck, I can’t stop writing about this – something in me is pushing me to keep writing.’ It felt very on top of me and very immediate, but now it feels a little bit further away. I’m still writing about it, but I’ve gone through a few years of growth and dealing with trauma. It’s quite a dark album, but I feel lighter. I just needed to write this second album.”

As well as rage, what’s so interesting this time is that your new single THE GARDEN showcases a very different side – what was the vision for that song?

“THE GARDEN is a little more of a ballad, a little more radio-friendly. It’s showing our softer side, because the album has both of it. We wanted a song that was a little bit softer, that would maybe prick the ears of people that wouldn’t necessarily choose to listen to us because we’re too heavy. I really love that song. Actually, it very nearly didn’t make the album, but we changed our mind. When we were first writing it, we were just playing it in the practice room, and I came up with the basic melody, Alisha did the basic chord progression and we played it a few times around and I was like, ‘Does this sound like a Christian rock song?’”.

Go and follow Witch Fever and show them plenty of love and support. The Manchester quartet have had some challenges along the way but seem to be at their strongest right now. The amazing Amy Walpole, Alex Thompson, Alisha Yarwood and Annabelle Joyce are leading Witch Fever into a new chapter. Ahead of the release of FEVEREATEN on 31st October, it is going to be fascinating to see where they go from here. Their fanbase growing and their name getting out to new corners of the industry. If you have slept on Witch Fever so far, then do make sure that you…