### Witherscape: The inheritance

#### 26/07/13 || Ironpants

I could take the easy way out on this one. Like this:

Hey! Witherscape’s album is out!

But, I guess that is not how it’s supposed to be done?

Talent! Some of us have it, some don’t. If you have been in a band of some sort, and it doesn’t really matter if you were successful or not, I am 100% sure that you’ve been caught in a discussion with some other dude/chick with the subject being “We should play some stuff, you know, just gather and jam, and see what comes out”. Sometimes it happens, and more often it don’t. If you are talented and have all your horses in the stable, and on top of that isn’t some idiot, all the pieces seem to fall in the right direction, and there is stuff created that is superb craftsmanship. And, if you’re really talented, even godlike in some aspects, you create stuff that a lot of other people can enjoy.

Witherscape is somewhere in that area, godlike may be a strong word, but at least words like “super-professional” and “mastermind” can be assigned to Mr. Dan Swanö. OK, he’s not alone in this project, but bare with me for a while. Swanö has been a force to be reckoned with for decades, and if you don’t know who he is, I suggest you pause here and Google some shit, but I will for the purpose of not falling into the trap of writing an essay about him, stick to the fact that you know of his previous works, both music wise and in the skills of production and “mixtering”. The other half of this project is Ragnar Widerberg, and who’s that you might ask? I don’t know the guy personally, but I understand that he is also a super-talented dude, and in the circle of musicians in town, he is well spoken of, but maybe not in these regions of “darker” music?

Well, as I understand it, these two lovebirds worked together at the local music store, and here’s where the intro-text is connected. They did just what you all have done several times before, “Hey man, we should do something together”, and, yes, Witherscape was born… and it’s fucken awesome! Many tears have fallen down my wrinkly face, since Dan stopped growling and in my opinion he was (is) one of the best growlers around, and I remember the days of Edge of Sanity, when other singers sounded like some rabid German shepherd with asthma or an angry midget trapped in a box, Dan has always been well articulated, and he growls in a manner that you actually hear what the man is grunting about.

Once again his majestic voice is allowed to flow in your sound system, and you might think that one of the reasons for him to stop growling, and sing with his girlie voice, was that he couldn’t do it anymore? Well, maybe, but if that was the case he has now found a way to revive his dark voice, cause it’s back with a vengeance. It doesn’t sound exactly the same, but it’s still an epic growl with lots of depth and genital power.

His clean singing is a little bit different from his other main band, Nightingale, not much but you hear that he tries to give it a little more punch. And here is maybe the only small drawback on the record? Dan has of course a good clean singing voice, but it is a little… to hard rock-ish for me in some parts of the songs. But hey! That small drawback is like if you are in a hockey team and you are leading the match with 80-0 and the opposing team makes one goal, nothing to whine about (except for the goalie maybe?).

How’s the music? I am trying to not mention that other Swedish band who was really big in the genre of progressive rock/metal with harsh/clean singing, that nowadays have invested all their money in one basket of retro 70’s prog and flared trousers, but that is almost inevitable…just almost… Cause Witherscape inject their dose of prog from another syringe. The music is more hard rock-prog than death-prog, even with Dan’s dark voice, it’s more 80’s heavy metal with traces of Rush, and maybe a little spice of Dream Theater? But it is still dark and quite sinister here and there. It’s hard too explain in words, you must hear it, and when you hear it, everything falls into place.

Another fact that is apparent, is that these guys don’t overdo it. They are not trying to win the annual world championship in instrument masturbation, no , the main focus is to let the songs live their life and develop a story that you want to follow. It’s progressive in the way that it lets you recognize what’s going on, but still keeping you on your toes.

Dan handles, besides the voices, the drums and the keyboards. Even if he’s a multi-instrumentalist, he originated behind the the drum kit, and is once again back in the saddle, and he makes a pretty good job with interesting and solid playing. The keyboards aren’t there as a main act, but they appear from time to time, but when they appear it is in a “lead-style” and accentuating guitars and following the melodies, which gives it some kind of Rush feeling over it all. I am actually pretty surprised that I like it this much, cause I normally have a hard time with that kind of playing style in keyboards, and that is just another fact that proves that they know how it’s supposed to be done.

The guitar and bass is left for Ragnar to master, and the playing style is, once again, hard rock-progressive with some mighty fine solos and stuff going on all the time, but always in earlier mentioned style of being melodic and natural, and not trying to take you on a ride to the house of self-pleasuring fretboard mania. Dan has found a mighty partner in songwriting, and I thank them for keeping it in the circle of “believable” and not “unbelievable”. This is how you write and perform songs, even for normal people, and not only for musicians and for the purpose of showing off.

Regarding the lyrics, they are written by a fellow who isn’t involved in the actual performance, but was asked to perfect the ideas that flowed out of Witherscapes’s minds. The lyrics are written by Paul Kuhr from Novembers Doom, which might seem like an odd thing to do, but Dan explained that he felt that they had to be written by someone “more schooled” to get the story flow nicely through the album. “The Inheritance” is kind of a concept album and is evolving around the setup of a man who inherits an old mansion in the north of Sweden, and when he arrives there, the shit hit the fan, so to speak. It’s a pretty good story and gives the album another dimension.

All in all, this is a keeper, and if you like me has grown up with metal through four decades, you will certainly find this album enjoyable. I can’t in this moment find a recent release, that has the ability to span over so many genres and still keeping it’s integrity. One perfect example is the albums “hit song”, “Dead for a day”, where the pop-song structure of the chorus fights side-by-side with Dan’s growl and a classic heavy metal solo. Or “Dying for the sun”, that after a minute long intro, kicks off with a 80’s metal riff and following up with a really proggy middle section. If you are a true music lover, and know what’s going on, you most probably already have a pre-order waiting for this album, if not, get it now…or stay in the shadows.

As I said before, and in case you missed it:

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Century Media Records
- Website: www.witherscape.com
- Band
- Dan Swanö: vocals, drums, keyboards
- Ragnar Widerberg: guitars, bass

- Tracklist
- 01. Mother of the soul
- 02. Astrid falls
- 03. Dead for a day
- 04. Dying for the sun
- 05. To the calling of blood and dreams
- 06. The math of the myth
- 07. Crawling from validity
- 08. The wedlock observation
- 09. The inheritance