Metal Underground.com

Florida’s extreme legends Wykked Wytch have returned to vomit forth a fifth offering to Satan on an unsuspecting metal world. It’s been four years since the release of “Memories of a Dying Whore” and in 2012 the hell clan pulls the wool over our eyes with “The Ultimate Deception.” I can attest that Wykked Wytch is an acquired taste, but I have been known to feast on the band's ultra extreme metal on many an occasion over its eight year existence. The end result is exactly the chaotic, but melodic, force of true evil that you would expect from Ipek and crew, and perhaps even a bit better.

About the only thing deceiving on this album is the calming intro of “Birthing the Beast.” However, it doesn't take long for the scalding hyper riffs and blast beats to ensue, signifying the necromancer Ipek Warnock's emergence like a devil fetus from a bloody vagina. While extreme metal plays a relatively small role in my metal interests, Wykked Wytch has always intrigued me on a level that a lot of bands of the genre do not.

Ipek can clearly kick any guy’s ass vocally and probably physically. Her voice is as unholy as any in metal, yet it is those times when she sings traditionally (albeit not often) which scare me the most. When I first heard Mercyful Fate as a fifteen year old kid, King Diamond had a profound effect. His propensity to twist and deform his voice like the possessed at the onset of an exorcism scared me into a high level of respect. When Ipek's extreme and clean styles are paired up (check out "When the Sleepers Rise"), or when she goes from extreme to clean, it has a very similar effect. It is so spellbinding you can't turn it off even as it bludgeons your gut with a dull knife and rips out your intestines. Some listeners can pass this off as a mere barrage of noise, but it really is not easy to be this captivating. If Ipek’s goal is to sound unholy and ungodly, then by Lord Satan she has done it!

Interleaved throughout the unholy wall of sound is the absolute breathtaking melody, especially the amazing guitar work of Nate Poulson. Dangling like an apple on the tree of knowledge within “Serpents Among Us,” tempts one of the finest solos I have heard. Now as to the inclusion of the "sacred" Metallica song "Fade to Black," it appears that confused purists seem to put down the inclusion of the cover. I will tell you this - Metallica never sounded cooler (as I feel the ensuing lightning strike to the head for merely thinking such a "sacrilege"). Look, when a cover is performed in the style of the covering band, it is precisely what I want to hear. Ipek shows off her melodic traditional style, leaving me wondering just how cool she would sound in a power/symphonic metal setting.

Other notable tracks include the wildly catchy riffs of “Eyes of a Vulture” (also with masterful double bass from guest drummer Kevin Talley (Daath/Nothnegal), early Morbid Angel chaos as shown in “The Ultimate Deception” and album favorite “Prayers of the Decapitated.”

“The Ultimate Deception” can be just that…at least to any listener unaware of just how good extreme metal can be, especially when mixed with a bit of melody and technical prowess. Once again, Ipek successfully accomplishes exactly what makes this band so intriguing: sonic horror of pure evil come to life.