Okay, so first up is the album Withdrawal from black metal band Woe. I honestly don't know much about this band, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. I found out about these guys through another blog one day and kind of put this album on the back burner. What I will do is listen to this album from front to back and give you my thoughts.
And the first thing I can tell you is that albums like this are what got me into metal music in the first place. It's absolutely punishing, dark and just really, really hostile. The speed at which these guys are playing their instruments is relentless throughout most of the album, aside from some really groovy riffs on songs like Exhausted and Song of My Undoing. Oh, and the really corny acoustic guitar intro on All Bridges Burned which just seems awkwardly placed to me. The art of transitioning from mid-paced acoustic guitar riffs to hyper-speed blasts and tremolo riffs is difficult to get right, and many bands opt for no real transition at all. Anyway, back to the good stuff… the production is really clean for a black metal record, but it works for the style that they are playing. You really want to hear everything that is going on, because at the end of the day there is a lot of good melody on this record. This really does remind me of a lot of metal bands that I loved growing up. Bands like Absu, early Marduk, Witchery. Essentially anyone who played black metal with a strong thrash influence, and did it well. Yeah, I like this album. This is the shit. And that solo halfway through Carried by Waves to Remorseless Shores of the Truth !!! Beautiful. The drawing point of this album has to be the riffs though; They are exactly the kind of riffs I hope to hear when I put on a metal album, dark and punishing, yet very catchy and head bang worthy.
Well, even though I really wasn't in a black metal mood, listening to this has made me want to go back and check out the Woe discography that I have missed out on and see how they have evolved.
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