Hot damn! Here's a vicious demo from this relatively new band featuring current and former members of Social Infestation, Leechmilk, and Puaka Balava that could best be described as blackened death/grind sludge! Wordy and all over the place, I know, but trust me... that's exactly what this is, and it's awesome! The vocals are generally perfectly delivered low growls or variations on midrange yelling with accents of higher screams, and the music is quite a mixed bag (though totally focused). Succinct opener "The Fear and Pain That Cripples Me" blasts out right away with some grinding tremolo picking before falling back on a reliably paced death metal crunch; "Within Your Grief" fuses blastbeats and tremolo picking with slower, doomier chord progressions reminiscent of Mindrot, later building into an epic lead harmony over a far more emphatic and melodic rhythm pattern; and "Like Locusts", which runs a massive 8+ minutes, opens with a classic styled doom harmony that carries on slowly prior to blazing into some grinding riffs two minutes in. Later things slow back down and lock into a sick sludge groove, and these fucking pounding riffs are immense with force! For a demo the recording is fucking excellent. Damn near good enough to get them by were it a full-length. The bass tone is distorted but still plays a good role amidst the guitar sound (which I would leave as it is), the vocals sound good, the drums sound good, etc. What might change? Well, the drums can get too loud sometimes, especially during the faster moments, and even though the drumming is very strong (nice fills and creative patterns that don't stagnate) this can be a bit overpowering. So the mix is the only thing I might try to clear up or even out just a tad. It really sounds awesome, though. The CD-R comes with a black and white insert that has dark printing on each side with minimal artwork and text. No lyrics are included, just the tracklist, basically. The packaging's not particularly a proper representation of how good the music is, but it looks fine, so fuck it. Watch out for this band. This is great stuff. I'd be surprised and disappointed if they didn't get more attention off of this demo.
[self-released]
Running time - 15:04, Tracks: 3
[Notable tracks: Like Locusts]
Withered - http://www.withered.net
