Last Contact by Withering Soul is one of those records that you hear for the first time, and it instantly seems as if it’s been part of your collection for years. Does that make sense? I think I should try and make that make sense.
Last Contact is the musical equivalent of deja-vu. It’s the sound of a band that you could swear that you’ve been listening to for years, even if – like me – Last Contact is your cherry pop introduction to Withering Soul. After all, this is the Chicago natives third full release, so our paths must’ve crossed somewhere down the line. Right? Well, no, they haven’t, which I found surprising, especially considering just how fucking good Last Contact is.
There are the obvious traits I could use to describe Withering Soul. They are face meltingly heavy, with riffs and rhythms that could crumble the Walls of Jericho into dust, but there is also an intense melodic vein that runs through Last Contact that Withering Soul mines like gem obsessed dwarfs. If those gem obsessed dwarfs also happened to be obsessed with black metal as well.
Their sound is full to the brim with intricate melodious strains that complement and contradict the abrassive nature that seems to lie at the heart of Withering Soul. This is pure beauty and the beast metal, and it works perfectly.
Crossing genres is never easy, but Withering Soul are as comfortable in the death metal realm as they are at home in the black metal one, and its this ability to switch seamlessly between the two that allows them to flex their musical muscles on Last Contact, as breakneck blast-beats give way to pounding death metal and back again with ease, allowing the bass, guitars, and synths to weave a raw unholy musical tapestry, while the vocals rumble and roar like Odin’s own thunder.
Quite frankly Last Contact is a fucking kick ass record, and if you like your black metal dripping in death of your death metal blackend like the ace of spades – with a huge dose of melodic brilliance to sweeten the pot even more – then you could do a lot fucking worse than checking out Withering Soul.
Head on over to the Withering Soul Bandcamp page to check out Last Contact for yourself.
