WITHERSHIN
Ashen Banners
Canonical Hours
7 points
Mörk Grynings Return Fire was an absolute dude on first and second listen. Only years later did I realize, after a few more go-throughs, it fuckin’ rages. Doesn’t scale quite as well as Tusen År Har Gått and Maelstrom Chaos, but there’s a sinking feeling when passing on metal the first time means only to love it later. As if the metal radar malfunctions for no real reason other than to malfunction.
Swedish black/death upstarts Withershin have that Return Fire thing goin’ on. On first and second blasts, debut album Ashen Banners owes tons of cloven hooves and spiked codpieces to Marduk (all eras), Necrophobic (first album), Dawn (Slaughtersun) and Setherial (Nord). The album’s nine hymns to the evil red dude are nasty in all the appropriate spots. They rip by one after another - a riff here (”Lights in Zephyrs”), a riff there (”The Art of Ascension”) - but fail to make more than a passing impression.
Like looking at Zdzilsaw Beksinski’s darkest pieces at one-second intervals. Something of substance is there. Shit’s just too detailed and perverse to comprehend when fired off in such quick, molten succession.
That’s where the seventh and eighth blasts come in. Ashen Banners is wonderfully nuanced. The ghastly moans in “Reap the Impurities,” the end (bubbling bass/martian guitar solo) of “Lights in Zephyrs” and the “Freezing Moon”-like vocals of “Disdain” strike just as Withershin pedal in place. Don’t end up paying five times more for Ashen Banners later when it can be had for under a Jackson now.
Chris Dick, Decibel Magazine