Sometimes you receive an album that instantly grabs you by the throat and never lets go. Rational arguments to explain why this particular album is in your mind forever are hard to find and emotional arguments are difficult to write down. When I listened to Withering’s debut Gospel Of Madness for the first time, I was immediately hooked. It has rarely left my cd-player since. As I am supposed to review Gospel Of Madness, this is my attempt in describing why this album is so excellent.

Withering started in 1999 and began their career playing Paradise Lost, Amorphis and Sentenced covers and it may not come as a surprise that the first two names that entered my mind as I listened to Gospel Of Madness, were Paradise Lost and Amorphis. The resemblance is great as all bands play mid tempo melodic death metal. At least Paradise Lost and Amorphis did years ago. When they went on to explore more popular music I lost track of them but I still have warm feelings for albums like Gothic, Shades Of God and most important Tales Of The Thousand Lakes. Withering continues where the other two bands stopped.

The first thing you’ll notice is the unbelievable warm en organic production of the album.

Especially the guitar sound is fantastic, although all instruments are produced with an eye for detail. Producer Ahti Kortelainen from the famous Finnish TicoTico Studios did a marvellous job here. The mastering was done at the equally famous Finnvox Studios, were virtually every Finnish band master their releases. Secondly, singer/bass player Raimo Crazyhorse has just the right throat for this kind of music. His grunt is low and powerful but not guttural; he pronounces the lyrics really well and adds a lot of aggression to the music. The pace of the eleven tracks is mostly mid tempo with an occasional burst of speed (“Anguish Of Frustration”). One can say this is a weak point; but on the other hand, this is the style they chose to play and within the limits of the genre they’ve achieved to write 11 strong tracks. There are no fillers, no weak songs, all tracks are equally strong but my personal favourite is “Northern Breeze”, because of its fabulous melancholic riff.

Therefore, in short, if you long for the melodic death metal of the mid nineties, this is your band.