### Withering Soul: No closure

#### 02/05/11 || cadenz

Chicago, Illinois. The Windy City. The home of the reigning Stanley Cup champions. Sitcom “According to Jim” is shot here, I believe. My sister-in-law lives there for the moment being. All of these things have one thing in common. They tell you something about Chicago. Notice the lack of mentions of the amazing bands that keep Chicago’s amazing black metal scene alive? Yeah, me too. Weird. I thought Chicago was a central piece in the black metal puzzle. Whoever wrote that paragraph must’ve been on dope. Waaait a minute…

OK. Withering Soul it is. Hailing from the Town of Farts. Delivering black metal. With synths. And an emo moniker. “This will not end well,” toll the bells. Well, we’ll see. Let’s start off by checking out what these guys look like:

Let’s dissect this image, shall we? (I’ll try to squeeze in something about the music at the end, but don’t hold your breath.) The guy to the left seems to have fallen asleep; I know, photo shoots are seldom fun. Especially when you’re supposed to look like you’re not having fun. The next fella looks like he’s pissed at the camera guy for stealing his eye-liner and conditioner. To the right we have Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth fame, disguised as a clean-shaven metalhead. Sorry to burst the bubble, Mike! And at the back we have a-…err, we have a… is that…Black Metal Chewbacca? If your image is OK with looking like that, I’m guessing that music awesome enough to remedy the visual catastrophe is non-existent. Let’s look into that then, shall we?

You know what black metal sounds like, don’t you? High-pitch shrieking, tremolo guitars in minor keys, alternating between harmonic and disharmonic melodies, blastbeats and fast double kicks. And evil lyrics, of course. That’s the foundation, and from there people have been taking it in every possible direction. Withering Erection have chosen the cheesier path, with several things softening up the place, like synth pads, traditional heavy metal chord progressions and clean vocals once in a while, even by a (guest) female vocalist on one song. Nothing wrong with the direction chosen, if your song-writing and delivery is top-notch. Is it, on “No Closure”? Well, it’s not too bad but it’s definitely not ground-breakingly awesome either.

A clear and good production supports the tight musicianship well, and the vocal delivery is above average. The atmosphere is there, though a bit more black grit in the purple softness that is “No Closure”’s aura wouldn’t have hurt. Arranging-wise we’re on professional ground here, but the main problem is the riffs and melodies themselves. I feel like I’ve heard a good amount of the riffs before, and I just keep nodding along and tapping my foot. To be swept away by the music I need much grander gestures than what are being presented here. Either sharpen up your pens, pencils, quills or whatever you use to scribble down your compositions and create more riveting material, or increase the amount of contrasts in your arrangements so everything pops out a little more. It’s amazing how much you can do with a simple shitty riff, if you insert it into the right spot in a song and use a little imagination in instrumentation and other arranging details.

I might come off as a bit negative here; “No Closure” is an OK disc after all, and I’ll probably check out Withering Soul’s coming efforts. But if my boner isn’t emerging, something is amiss. And it’s not me. It’s you.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Mortal Music
- Website: Withering Soul MySpace
- Band
- Mykil: voices
- Krystofer: guitars, synth
- William: bass, synth
- Marek: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Night of the Revenant
- 02. Phantasmal Chaos Divinity
- 03. The Sequitor
- 04. Tides of the Accursed
- 05. Possession of Deception – Part II
- 06. Sadistic Redress
- 07. Manifest Transparency
- 08. Lifeless They Lie
- 09. Unquiet
- 10. Requiem of Sorrow