Vikings. Druids. And, of course, witches. The fourth album from Burning Witches has them all. The Witch of the North sees the all-female power-metal squad weaving tales inspired by Norse mythology, fantasy novels and the streaming swordplay series The Witcher—all set to the tune of chalice-hoisting riffs. “It’s not a concept album, but more like a theme,” vocalist Laura Guldemond tells Apple Music. “It’s about a witch that has the power to look into the future. She’s kind of based on the goddess Freya, and the story has a lot of snow, ice and mythological creatures.” The album also marks the debut of new guitarist Larissa Ernst, who joins Guldemond, guitarist Romana Kalkuhl, drummer Lala Frischknecht and bassist Jeanine Grob in the mostly Swiss band. Below, Guldemond takes us through the songs. “Winter’s Wrath” “You can hear it’s kind of cold-sounding, with wind and a folky vibe. We wanted to do that because of the Norse mythology element. It’s something you wouldn’t really expect from us, maybe—a choir, and me singing pretty folky. I never did that before. It was very much fun to do and really sets the vibe, almost like a movie.” “The Witch of the North” “Because this was the inspiration for the theme of the album, we wanted it to be more storytelling than usual. It tells about the Witch of the North and what she stands for. She gives power to other witches to see into the future. If you look at the Prose Edda, you'll see stories that tell about the witches that have this power. In the album’s story, she is asked to look into who is having the right to inherit something. This is also kind of the same role that Druids had, so this song is slightly more Celtic.” “Tainted Ritual” “For this song I took some freedom outside the theme, but it is still about a witch. If you know the series The Witcher, it’s about the character of Yennefer. She starts out as an outcast because she has a different body, but she’s actually a very powerful witch. But she's not trained—she doesn’t actually know yet. Her family treats her bad, but she gets picked up by people who know her power and train her. Eventually she makes it as one of the most powerful witches ever, but she has to give up a lot.” “We Stand as One” “This is really outside of the theme, because when Romana sent me the song, I knew it was like a metal hymn. So I didn’t really want to take away from that by pushing it into the North theme. The fun thing is that I asked the band, ‘What is metal for you? What do you like about it?’ And they talked about the feeling of being at a concert, the ones that are loud and fast and you’re together with friends. So I put all these things into this song.” “Flight of the Valkyries” “This is obviously super inspired by Norse mythology. Some people think of Valkyries as angels that watch over warriors, so when they fall on the battlefield they will be taken to Odin. But some people believe they are sinister beings that look at the warriors and say, ‘Hey, that one's good’—and then they would just kill him and take him for Odin's army. I liked that version, so that's what the song is about.” “The Circle of Five” “This was already written before we picked the theme. It was the first song, actually. It was when Larissa entered the band, so we just wanted to show what she could do. It was a big line-up change for us, so we just wanted to show everyone, ‘Hey, we're good.’ We are the circle of five, so the song kind of speaks for itself.” “Lady of the Woods” “There is one mythological creature in Norse mythology that is a forest temptress. She has a cow’s tail, but for all the rest she’s human. She’s like a Northern version of a succubus. She would want a human guy to live with her, so she would tempt him. If this guy would not be nice to her or not want to join her, that would probably be the end for him. So it’s about enchantment and the dangers that come with it. I always like when there’s a bit of danger.” “Thrall” “This one is pretty special. It's not really based on Norse mythology, but more on the culture. I think maybe most people don’t know this, but when Vikings would raid cities, they would take slaves. I never really heard about it before I started looking into it. So this song is about a slave revolt. But my inspiration actually came from something totally different—a crazy fantasy trilogy by Robin Hobb called The Liveship Traders. This story also has a slave revolt.” “Omen” “This is basically the intro for ‘Nine Worlds’. It’s about a druid seeing things that are going to happen in the future, leading to the end of the world. The nine worlds are going to fall. People thought ravens were bad omens, so you can hear the ravens in the background.” “Nine Worlds” “In Norse mythology they talk about the nine worlds. There is this tree of life that connects all the worlds. The worlds are destroyed and born again in Ragnarök, and there are many creatures involved. You have frost giants in the beginning, because it is believed that the world started from a really icy period. Then the titans come—before the gods, even. And after that, humanity, et cetera, until the world is destroyed, followed by a long period of cold and nothingness. And then it all starts again.” “For Eternity” “That's about the fight between Vikings and Christianity. Both are super convinced about their religion, and they just fight for what they believe in.” “Dragon’s Dream” “I sneaked a little bit of The Liveship Traders into this one as well. In the story, there are ships made from wood that can absorb memories, and the wood actually comes from old dragon cocoons—so they have the dragons’ dreams and memories as well. The people who excavated these cocoons for the wood could sometimes be so engulfed by the memories that they would go crazy.” “Eternal Frost” “This is the part where the world is not there for a moment. After its death, it will start again.” “Hall of the Mountain King” (Bonus Track) “For me, this is one of the best old-school metal songs ever written. We chose very deliberately for this album to have more storytelling songs, and this one by Savatage has this—and a mountain theme! We got Chris from Savatage to do a solo. He’s a really cool guy and was very enthusiastic to help us out.”