Forgotten Sunrise

Withered Earth's later work is rather unremarkable death metal, but this is definitely a lost gem, a beast of abstract, progressive death metal that matches up with many of the more openly experimental bands in just how weird they managed to make 'normal' death metal. Now these guys likely never got the attention they deserved because the music isn't as clearly bizarre as, say, 'Obscura', but give it half a listen and you'll find one of the most unique and stirring death metal albums ever released. It's a shame that this hasn't received much more attention than it has, particularly considering how even to this day it stands out as a unique and challenging album in the greater pantheon of death metal.

I compare this a lot to Broken Hope's 'Loathing', though the two albums sound very little like each other. Both are unique and progressive albums coming from bands primarily known as playing more stock and even generic death metal; and some of the musical elements are similar: an emphasis on technical but not showy musicianship, a profusion of acoustic/clean guitar passages, and a tempo that hovers closer to mid-paced than blast. What sets the two apart, though, is that while 'Loathing' feels closer to an exercise of what the band could do when they put their minds to something unique, 'Forgotten Sunrise' is a much more 'artistic' piece, soaked in atmosphere and with a distinctly narrative feel carrying through the album. The overall feeling is dark and not really occult, but certainly otherworldly. Similar to some newer melodic death metal artists, the music has a distinctly unaggressive tone, though Withered Earth is certainly more on the brutal side of death metal. However, the churning and brutal quality of the music isn't used so much to attack the listener as much as distance them from the music and ideas that they would typically associate with the genre.

The music rather abruptly alternates between somewhat more conventional death metal passages which remind me a bit of mid-era Morbid Angel and clean guitar or tribal drum sections, but the abruptness seems to work in this case, forming dreamy interludes between the more 'real' compositions. The album seems structured more as a set of scenes in a world rather than individual songs, with the death metal broken up even within the context of individual tracks. The overall feel of this is extremely atypical for death metal, being at once dark and naturalistic, seeming very 'inhuman', though not in the monstrous way one might first think. The result of this is an album that feels misanthropic and complex, with the technical instrumentation being used, again, to distance the listener from preconceived notions of the genre.

This is not a particularly 'riffy' death metal album, and few of the melodies are particularly memorable on their own. Many of the riffs are very constricted as far as fret range goes, with much of the content of the riffs emerging from a wide variety of chord shapes, basing the music off texture more than traditional concepts of melody. Occasionally the band will let loose with a lead guitar passage or riff which is more openly melodic rather than the almost mechanical chugging which dominates much of the music, but it's still certainly not an album listened to for riffs. The drumwork is crawling and technical in the Pete Sandoval mode, with substantial note density (though not quite as great as Morbid Angel) emerging in the form of cymbals and tom fills. Vocals are relatively sparse and oriented on a guttural roar ala Suffocation, and are used to provide texture more than create a thread for the music to follow.

That in and of itself is likely what makes this feel so very different from other death metal albums, which have a set of discreet yet similar riffs are a common thread of root notes leading one through the song structures. This has no central thread and the various instruments, including the bass, generally meander and do their own thing, in no rush to get anywhere that will lead to a greater cohesion of the music. This might sound distasteful to those who want more 'musical' death metal for lack of a better term, and it's certainly a challenging listen, but the way the music's structured actually makes it more compelling on another level; it sounds nothing like other death metal, and is sort of what you get when a death metal band jams extensively and records what happens to fall into place. The coherence between the instruments is often more coincidental than anything, and in many cases they wander wherever they feel is appropriate.

It's not a very 'death metal' death metal album and certainly only has a relative aesthetic connection to its root genre, but it's an excellent album in how it manages to completely invert many of the elements while still containing its bizarre breed of coherency. While the music is wandering and ethereal, there are still certain 'songs' to be found, though they don't fall in line with death metal tradition very often at all. It's certainly not an album for headbanging or grunting along with, but if you'd like to dedicate the time and attention to it, you'll reap great reward.