As I've stated many times before, music - in my humble opinion - is the soundtrack to our lives. There's music for every single moment in life, regardless to what genre(s) you like listening to. You could be listening to Prince's Purple Rain while being all romantic and smoochy-hoochy with your lady/man (no, not lady man, you pervert!), you could be listening to Cannibal Corpse's Addicted To Vaginal Skin while proposing to that favorite someone of yours, you could be listening to Neil Young's Motorcycle Mama while staring at your buddy's mom as she does housework... It's all a mater of personal taste too, of course. I've always found Black/Death Metal to be my fuel whenever I feel angry, whenever someone's pissed in my cornflakes and I just feel an unbeatable urge to go out and bitch-slap somebody.
Withered raise their middle fingers from Atlanta, U.S.A. or at least that's where this Black/Death Metal act formed two years ago. Chris Freeman (guitar & vocals) and Mike Thompson (guitar & vocals) were the founding members (and as you can see, still are in the band) of Withered and since then there have been a few changes in the lineup. In 2004 the band spent half the year preparing a 5-song EP entitled Order From Chaos, with producer Michael Green of Light Pupil Dilate-fame at the helm. They released three of their songs on a Demo CD later that year, which started raising awareness among the fans of the underground scene. A couple of weeks out on the road touring and that was enough to grab LifeForce Records' attention who immediately signed the band. What we're reviewing here, in this article, is their debut full length album through LifeForce, Memento Mori (which makes me wonder if they've ever heard of the Swedish Heavy Metal act, Memento Mori...).
The band embraces a style of crossing paths of bands like early Entombed, some Cannibal Corpse, Dissection, Dismember... oh yeah, all that and even more in one! Of course the outcome sounds... Withered...after all, mixing all these (specific) elements in the ever shredding Death grinder could only come out with something AT LEAST a tad taller than your usual Death/Grind/Black/Shred/Whatever band (I sound like Dr. Frankenstein tonight). I like the duality on the vocals with Freeman and Thompson exchanging howls while really heavy guitars (and ultimately fast-shreddin' at times) web the lyrics with layers of axing (there are some cool riffs in there, like for example in Within Your Grief) and the drumming - of course - could not be anything other than just the way you like it... face-pounding (example: It's All Said)! Production wise the album's just as a Death/Grind/Black album should sound like. Dirty as a rotten corpse, sharp as an overused chainsaw. Though, to be quite frank, I'd like to be able to hear the guitars a tad higher in the whole mix; I feel they'd kick ass even more that way. These guys have successfully blended all they needed to along with their own personal skills; Black Metal downfalls combined with Grind/Death up-beatings, twisted with passing by Heavy Metal bullets coming - as I mentioned - from the guitars. What? You say it's too short for an album? Well, you must have ended up here by mistake because this is not a Progressive Metal review, my friend...
If you're into Death/Grind or even raw Black Metal, give Withered a chance and go buy Memento Mori. You won't be disappointed (hell, I know I'm not the biggest Death Metal fan on this planet and I find this album pretty interesting).
- Album Highlights: Within Your Grief, Like Locusts and Beyond Wrath.