Withered Fist – This is My Mountain
Release Date: January 01, 2018
I recently got an email from a band from Ireland called Withered Fist. This is what it said:
Just wanted to let you know about a new project with Carl from Two Tales Of Woe called Withered Fist from Ireland. We’ve just released our debut E.P. of slow but melodic heft called “This is my Mountain” on the 1st of January. We’d love if you would consider it for review. This is a side-project, TTOW are recording a new E.P. themselves due for release next Spring. Since leaving TTOW in 2016, I’ve still been recording music at home. This is slow and heavy, the music we love, but we feel it’s quite different to what we have done in the past, with lots of harmonies and greater focus on melody without sacrificing the heft.
Ok, first off, they used the word “heft” twice. I have never even heard this word used like this so this was a red flag but decided to forge forward and give this “heft” a listen. The title track of this three song EP called This is My Mountain is a nearly nine minute long opus. There must be something in the water in Ireland that creates this “heft” and I can only hope that it doesn’t reach the waters here. Sounding like a cross between a horribly weak and off key version of Kyng meets Alice in Chains had me facepalmin and hoping that maybe it would get better. Well, it didn’t.
“The Dread” is another pitchy song with its predictable doom sound ala Black Sabbath meets <insert trendy doom band here>. This song was 6:59 of pure “heft.” I left the room, got a glass of orange juice, took a piss, came back and I felt like I hadn’t missed a thing and even then I still had 2 minutes left of this shit to go through.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was “The Journey.” Here’s the deal bands. If you are going release songs average, nine minutes, seven minutes, and 11 fucking minutes long, they better be interesting, and they better be good and these songs were neither of those things. It was long, ploddy, dull, and apparently heft. The vocals are pitchy at best and the lyrics are reminiscent of the shit you’d find scrawled in a 11th grader’s note book who listened to way too much Alice in Chains back in 1995:
“Without warning, the war it comes to me
Broken walls line the road, another day to dream
Another day to wake myself, another way to rid this disease
Can’t feel pain or joy or love, this is the end for me.”
In a nutshell, This is My Mountain is a mediocre album at best. Honestly, as much as I hate Trump as president, I’d be appreciative if he’d write a bill to keep this kind of shit from crossing the pond. Sorry but this is a big ol’ “no.” Maybe you’ll think otherwise so you decide for yourself:
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