I guarantee this is one of the most punishing and darkest slabs of metal you'll hear in 2010. Atlanta, Georgia would seem an unlikely home for a band as oppressive and crushing as Withered. Sweden or Finland would come to mind more quickly, but nonetheless, these guys have really fired a mortar blast of doom straight into the American metal scene and I hear they are still picking up body parts at the crater.

If you mixed extreme genres such as grindcore, sludge, pure death metal and even a touch of blackness and ambient drone, you'd have Withered in a nutshell. The band switches tempos from super-collider velocity to the ooze of blood leaking from a wound and everything in-between, all smothered in one of the heaviest guitar sounds you are likely to hear. Add an agonizing vocal attack and you've got a formula for something you won't soon forget.

Grab your medication, slap on your crash helmet and set your course straight for the heart of Dualitas.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2010  Volume 6 at lulu.com/strangesound.

With virtually no build-up, this blasting fragment of blackened shrapnel bowls you over with total ferocity. The bass sound is monstrous, unlike many extreme bands, and it more than matches the thickened grind of the guitars. Watch out for the awesome doom riffs that attack in the middle of the tune.  Whether this is the final scream of the dying or the roar of the beast that does the killing, I'm not sure, but I know it rips!