On December 6th — tomorrow! — Meuse Music Records will release Withered Heart Standing, a magnificent new album by the Italian melancholic doom/death metal band Tethra, and it’s our pleasure to give you an advance listen today.
Over the course of eight songs, from “Liminal” through “Commiato,” the album both builds a dark, monumental, and ornately adorned edifice and holds out a fragile bleeding heart. It hits very hard, and it drifts like shining seas or wafting clouds. It becomes brazenly defiant, even furious, and it collapses on its knees, like a stricken soul stripped of everything dear but memory.
photo by Mattia Stancioiu
From that very first song, Tethra bring to bear almost all those qualities. “Liminal” packs a visceral punch, it jolts like a battering ram, the savagely snarling vocals are full of fire and fury, and the riffing grimly growls and swirls with blistering intensity. But it also includes gently wistful acoustic melodies, glittering notes that beckon, mystically swirling cello tones, and somber singing suffused with sorrow.
That song sets the template, introducing an album that’s persistently elaborate and varying in both its instrumentation and its moods. On one end of the spectrum, the music is almost brutishly heavy, hitting like sledgehammers on granite. On the other end it can become ethereal and haunting.
In between, the band interweave weave gloomy but soulful melodies; episodes of soaring and sweeping grandeur; elegant vibrations that ring like chimes, bells, and xylophones; craggy riffing that crushes, claws, and groans; dynamic drumming; and continuing vocal variations, both harsh and clean.
The harsh vocals are often frightening in their snarling, screaming, and scarring intensity, and the deep singing is gripping in a different way, with the contrasts between them being a key feature of the album.
photo by Mattia Stancioiu
The music benefits not just from the broad array of guitar, bass, and keyboard tones (and some remarkably expressive guitar soloing), but also from the contributions of guest musicians, who contribute even further vocal variation as well as piano, acoustic guitar, cello, and saxophone performances.
And yes, there is a saxophone performance, unexpected as it might be in this style of doom, in the compelling song “Like Water“, where it fits perfectly and helps make that track one of the strongest in a very strong album.
The production of the album brings clarity and separation, allowing each contrasting ingredient to stand out, but without weakening the power when the band surge and slug. And let’s add one more compliment: these songs dig under the skin, i.e., they’re hard to forget.
With that, we’ll leave you to become immersed in the complete album stream:
TETHRA is:
Clode Tethra – Vocals
Federico Monti – Guitars
Gabriele Monti – Guitars
Salvatore Duca – Bass
Lorenzo Giudici – Drums
GUESTS:
Vocals on “Days of Cold Sleep” and “Nighttime Surrender” by Elisabetta Marchetti (Beth & The Hangman).
Vocals on “Nighttime Surrender” by Joe Ferghieph (Cultus Sanguine).
Piano on “Commiato” by Davide “Billa” Brambilla (Enrico Ruggeri).
Keyboards, Acoustic Guitars on “Liminal” and Backing Vocals by Valerio Rizzotti.
Cello on “Liminal” and “Days of Cold Sleep” by Adriano Ancarani.
Saxophone on “Like Water” by Corrado Bosco.
Withered Heart Standing was produced by Valerio Rizzotti. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Elnor Studio by Mat Stancioiu. The cover artwork is by Giulia Nasini, with artwork designed by Marisa Bottini. Meuse Music recommends the album for fans of Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and Swallow the Sun.
PRE-ORDER:
Digipak: https://shorturl.at/ffTuT
Bundle T-shirt + Digipak: https://tethra.bandcamp.com/
TETHRA Online:
https://linktr.ee/TethraDoom
https://www.facebook.com/TethraHell
https://www.instagram.com/tethra_doom_official/