WITHERED „Memento Mori”

Music: Death Metal
Country: USA
Website: http://www.withered.net
Duration: 36.25
Cool Songs: Like Locusts, Beyond Wrath, Among Sorrow

Straight from the back blocks of Atlanta Georgia comes this debut album from newly raised Death Metal four piece Withered. Formed in 2003, Withered features ex-Social Infestation duo vocalist / guitarist Chris Freeman and guitarist Mike Thompson, joined by drummer Wes Kever (ex-Puaka Balava) and bassist Greg Hess who was previously with a band by the name of Leechmilk. Now, American Death Metal bands are a dime a dozen, but Withered are a little different in that like their Floridian counterparts ‘The Absence’ they embrace the ‘Swedish’ flavour. ‘The Absence’s passion lies in the back catalogue of ‘At The Gates’; Withered on the other hand simply worship early era ‘Entombed/Dismember’.

So, here we a get a Swedish loving American Death Metal band who is also signed to a predominately Metalcore oriented label in Lifeforce records. A strange mix really but it gets more interesting by the minute. Having only formed in the summer of 2003, Withered are obviously a fairly young band. Yet, having listened to ‘Memento Mori’ over several listening sessions, they sound like they’ve been at the game for years. Forget the fact that they haven’t got an original bone in their body.

This new album follows up the bands only demo ‘Order From Chaos’ and was produced by a relatively unknown Michael Green. Apparently, most of the material that is featured on ‘MM’ was also laid down during those demo sessions, but have been through the ‘remastering’ ringer in order to capture a heavier, more confronting sound. The results are not too bad either, with Green providing a fair link to that classic ‘Skogsberg’ production that so many of those Swedish acts churned out at Sunlight Studios. ‘MM’ has that real raw Dismember/Grave/Bloodbath guitar ‘buzz’ and tone that so underpinned the classic Swedish Death Metal sound of the early 90’s. Oh sure, it’s far from original, but it is nevertheless well intended and conceived. I do have some issues with a slightly compressed feel to the whole production, diluting some of the bands heaviness throughout. Still, the rawness is clearly evident and with Chris Freedman’s truly guttural vocals tearing through the mix, I’m willing to overlook the production anomalies.

The other impressive thing about Withered’s take on the Swedish Death Metal sound is their variation. Most of ‘MM’ slams like a sledgehammer, pounding riffage and loads of speed and blasting rhythms (and this is where the production suffers a little), but it’s the slower, almost doom laden moments such as the nine minute ‘Like Locusts’ (where they come off like My Dying Bride) and ‘Beyond Wrath’ (like ‘High on Fire) where their true heaviness and bottom feeding chordage shines best. The slower mid-tempo moments also work best because they DON’T sound like ‘Swedish Death Metal band 101’.

Lurking in the same playground as ‘Kaamos’ and ‘Bloodbath’, Gerogia’s ‘Withered’, like them, don’t pretend to rewrite the Death Metal rule book. Granted there is no way you’ll ever choose this over the classics but as far as paying a fairly hefty homage to all that has gone before them whilst adding a slightly doom laden touch to their song writing, Withered should be pleased with their efforts on ‘Memento Mori’. Nice Paul Romano (Mastodon) artwork and imagery gives the album a great aesthetic appeal too.

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