A full six years after their latest studio album release, Linköping, Sweden based blackened metallers Witchery returned with their long-awaited sixth studio album, In His Infernal Majesty’s Service, in November.

Witchery had played a score of festivals in support of their latest release Witchkrieg (2010), did a tour of Japan together with Vader and Watain, but unfortunately the band’s line-up rotation continued. While former Dark Funeral vocalist Emperor Magus Caligula assumed live-session duties for a while (replacing ex-Marduk/ Devian frontman Legion), it was only recently that guitarist and band-leader Jensen managed to gather the right new members for the recordings of In His Infernal Majesty’s Service, as he explains:

"You know what they say; as you grow older time moves faster, " Jensen told BraveWords recently. "It doesn't seem like it's been six years but then I look at the calendar and it's 'Oh my God, we're celebrating 20 years of Witchery, we need to make an album...' (laughs)."

"But that's the problem we've had since 2003 because that's around about when Angela (Gossow) joined Arch Enemy and things started to go really well for them," he continues, referring to bassist Sharlee D'Angelo's top priority and the resulting space between Witchery albums. "The Haunted took off around that time, and I think that's when Martin (Axenrot / drums) joined Opeth. We were really active between 1997 to 2003 and then things got difficult for us because there were so many conflicting schedules. It's crazy. We discovered that it was just as hard to get this album out as any other year we've done an album because it's hard to get everyone together. That's why Martin decided to gracefully bow out; he didn't want to make it a problem for Witchery to continue releasing albums. The way he put it, 'It's not like I don't have a band I'm going to tour the world with...' (laughs). We love the guy and we're still friends, so there's no animosity. Something had to change and he offered his place up; we found Chris (Barkensjö) to play drums and he's not as busy as Martin so it's easier to get rehearsals going. On top of that, Martin was a very sophisticated and tasteful player even before he joined Opeth, whereas I'm more of a Ramones / early Motörhead kind of player. Chris is the same way; he sounds like our first drummer, so having him in the band brought back that old Witchery feeling we had on Restless And Dead. Not only could we get back to rehearsing, we kind of got our old sound back."

Read more at BraveWords.