There are moment in your life when all you really need is unpretentious ass-kickery. For those moments, Witchtrial is here for you. The DC-based band features members of many of the finest hardcore bands from up and down the East Coast: Red Death from DC, Firewater from Boston, Ajax from New York. But Witchtrial don’t make hardcore. Instead, they pay glorious tribute to the hammering judder of ’80s speed-metal.

I have this theory that the best metal is made by punks, and Witchtrial are nice enough to back up my claim. They careen through monstrous riffs with reckless speed, and their solos and grunt-it-out vocals and rhythm-section carnage all work together to fuck your whole shit up. This is about as rudimentary as metal gets, and the drums stay set on “d-beat.” But when it comes to metal, at least as far as I’m concerned, this can only be a good thing. You already know whether you want to hear an all-star basement-hardcore wrecking crew attempt to go full Celtic Frost. I suggest you give it a shot.

Up until now, Witchtrial have only released a 2017 demo. But today, they have unleashed their self-titled debut EP — which, at 24 minutes, is longer than a whole lot of punk albums, though not too many metal ones. Merchandise’s Carson Cox recorded it, and Bandcamp-punk secret weapon Will Killingsworth mixed and mastered it. We’ve already posted the band’s song “Wait For The Reaper,” and now you can stream the whole EP below.

The self-titled Witchtrial EP is out now on Beach Impediment Records.