Akathisia

Doom metal has been a fortress against poseurism for a very long time. Most other genres in metal have been corrupted by a wave of bland wannabes who purge the scene with copycat albums which may press all the right buttons, but do so without heartfelt honesty and deeper understanding of the kind of music they play.

Black Metal has been corrupted by this since the 90s, death metal followed suit with endless waves of clones of fake acts such as Arch Enemy or Amon Amarth. Doom metal on the other hand was never really popular, so it took a much, much longer time for this music to get undermined by hopalongs, but it finally happened some years ago. Nothing is sacred, eh?

Wither Without You are one of these bands. Four handsome, stylish young guys of the smartphone generation, who look as if they are just on the way to their local charts-music dance club somehow got their hands on some newer My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Clouds and Officium Triste records and decided to be total underground and play that kind of music, too.

No, I don't want to be rude or personal. But this record is so shallow it is not even funny. The production is downright horrible. The vocals are much too loud, and they sound as if they were incorrectly compressed. All over the place, pushing all other instruments back, burying everything underneath. This is even more problematic as the vocals are delivered rather poorly. They reek of cookie-monster deathcore stuff. The grunts are deep and have some grit, but they lack any aggression or despair. Obviously the singer listened a lot to modern death metal, and probably had some YouTube lessons on how to growl.... But that does not make you a good singer. You have to growl from your guts and soul, you have to unleash a beast inside you. There clearly is no beast here. Often the grunts are accompanied by some higher screams which are reminiscent of black metal, but those are also rather lifeless and weak. It gets annoying after a while. Seems the singer likes Dani Filth a lot. And that's already quite revealing...

The guitars sound as if they were recorded directly from the multi FX board into the computer and no amps (or even re-amping) were used. Of course I can only speculate about this, but that's what it sounds like. They have some crunch, but sound artificial and bear no heaviness. Doom Metal without heaviness is like cake without sugar - bland and dull.

However, the worst problem here is the drums. These are some of the most artificial sound drums I have heard in quite a while. The snare sounds like opening a can of Soda. Pfft, pfft, that's all you gonna hear. The drums are so devoid of any pressure and punch, and buried so low in the mix that they could have left them out completely and the album would not sound much different. The cymbals, in contrast, are way too loud, so that the entire drumming sounds unnatural and distracting.

Keys are present, but they do not really dominate the songs. They rather add texture and layer, which is a good thing. At least they don't fall in the trap of haunting cliche piano elegies. They also have decent tone. Nothing to complain here.

The songwriting however has some redeeming qualities here and there, which is the reason why I rate this album with 40 % instead of a zero. The track "Nameless" is a good example of what this band could achieve, if they relied more on emotion and feeling instead of textbook doom metal 101. That song shows some interesting riffs with nice harmony-progressions woven in, a depressing atmosphere and a distinct own identity. Of course, it is diminished by the weak vocals and the aforementioned production issues, but the track in itself is a very good one!

Unfortunately, it is the only track that really stands out. "Relapse" also has some nice touches, but nothing to write home about. The remaining material is not worth mentioning, or in some cases even downright horrible. The closer "Despair Isn't Enough" for instance is just structureless random plodding without any meaning or curve. See, doom metal is NOT just playing slow distorted chords and mumbling something about the tragic loss of your cute little cheerleader girlfriend. You are correct here: "Despair Isn't Enough". Right! You also need ideas. It does not help that almost all songs have the same arrangement, starting with quirky clean guitars picking away, before some chugging slowmotion modern death metal riff sets in.

If WWY should aim for making themselves a name in the world wide doom metal underground scene, they will not succeed with this album. If they get past the extremely troubled production and manage to expand on their hidden potential, they might stand a chance. But this album has too many weaknesses to begin with, and I think 40% for one good and 2 half decent songs are pretty generous, especially when you consider the bad production.