Withered - Dualitas cd

Withered - Dualitas cd

"I remember it as if it were yesterday, wandering down the darkest and most bizarre alleyways New Orleans had to offer, blasting Folie Circulaire so loudly through my headphones that it felt as if putrid filth was being permanently injected into my brain. I was waiting any minute for the cement to split apart and for decades of accumulated drug-filled ooze, STD-filled piss and horse shit to ensnare me and drag me down into the bottomless depths of everlasting nothingness. As unpleasant as this may seem, a part of me would have enjoyed it, so long as Withered would have remained the soundtrack to this theoretical event.

What was once a band who played something impossible to fit into any specific genre has brought you something much more straightforward this time around. There is no doubting the notion that the loss of founding member Chris Freeman must have had something to do with the band’s sound alteration. Nevertheless, Withered has delivered something just as good as their 2008 release, albeit different. Although traces of the band’s past madness can be heard throughout their latest effort, it’s safe to say that Dualitas fits well into the ever-expanding USBM category. Allow me to get right to the bottom of things — this thing mercilessly crushes almost all of its competitors as far as black metal releases this year are concerned. Personally, I haven’t enjoyed a black metal album of this nature this much since Krallice’s Dimensional Bleedthrough, but let’s stop with the comparisons right now. Although Withered seems to have slid away from their bizarre blend of sludge-death-black-grind-doom-whateverthefuckyoucallit, Dualitas maintains a very high degree of originality and uniqueness." - Konrad Kantor / Last Rites