I am writing this piece not only because I have always had great respect for Dan Swanöbut also because his latest creation, i Witherscape, has churned out two truly exceptional records. The last one The Northern Sanctuary it’s now from 2016. I was therefore really curious to listen to the new work. Curious enough to blow the review to good Belardi, who had chivalrously offered to replace me several times. So curious that I didn’t realize these are called Witherfall, damn them. Witherscape and Swanö, needless to say, have nothing to do with anything other than the fact that they play metal and all have long hair.
This Los Angeles quartet/quintet could be considered a “supergroup”, given that it includes former members of White Wizzard, Into Eternity, Kobra and the Lotus and Circle II Circle. I had already heard it and, to be honest, I even liked the first album. Nocturnes and Requiems (2017) offered us a band technically excellentwhich played thrash/prog metal studded with shredding and therefore indebted to the neoclassical tradition. However, the sounds and production were not excessively cleaned up, and the rough, “dirty” grain of the recording meant that the record did not sound too plasticky. Evidently, already in this first studio test, it was the acrobatic cock of the histrionic singer, Joseph Michael, capable of moving theatrically from energetic and scratchy singing (with thick high notes) to more melodic moods, and comparable, in terms of style, to the best Rob Halford or King Diamond. After forced lineup changes (the first drummer, Adam Sagan, tragically died due to lymphoma shortly after the recording of the first album) and a couple more records, here we come to this Sounds of the Forgotten.
Unfortunately for me, I listened to the album three times. The band’s stylistic signature has remained practically unchanged. Witherfall continues to offer a mixture of thrash and progressive metal, but the second component has definitely taken over. Stylistically, and also from the point of view of choice of sounds, they are now much closer to Nevermore Dead Heart in a Dead World than to the Queensryche of Operation: Mindcrime, although the songs have an average duration of more than five minutes (also counting the three mini-interludes). Curiously, while I was reading up while waiting to listen to this latest work, I noticed with slight annoyance that Witherfall have slavishly fulfilled the possibility that someone was telling me about not long ago in unsuspecting times. Sounds of the Forgotten was preceded by a barrage of singles: seven, let’s say seven, singles in five months. The album, including three fucking fillers, adds up to ten songs in total. You do.
Then, that’s fine, you have to attract customers: and nothing attracts them more like that u piluit would seem. In fact, we can appreciate it in the very bad video of They Will Let You Down in the case of a piece of sesquipedal pussy while she takes a shower and is murdered (original). But also in that of Ceremony of Firewhere a trio of… witches perform some ritual of diaulo, murdering people and receiving some form of sexual pleasure from them. At least, this is what I understand from the lascivious poses, the languid glances and the plastic prosthetics (also original). The extended clientele is attracted by the pilu and come on midtempo (or by the slow ones). And in fact on this album there are two (maybe even three), all quite subdued. Emptiness Unobstructed, which by Nevermore is the piece that comes closest to it, gives it a ten to zero. And it is one of the least inspired pieces of the never too lamented Loomis, Dane and partners
A boring album. Great technique, as always, much less theatricality, but the real problem is that everything is at the service of very pale pieces. Above the middle grey, Opulent (a filler!) e What have you Done?, the last song, which distantly recalls the glories of the debut album. I think Witherfall can definitely do much, much better than this. In fact, the previous discs show them to us in a completely different format. But, despite everything, a very valid album. If only because now everyone, especially the skunk editorial team, knows who Eve Marlowe is. (Bartolo da Sassoferrato)
