WITHERFALL
The Curse Of Autumn
LA’s new gods of prog metal strike gold yet again
CENTURY MEDIA
Eschewing all the usual prog metal clichés in favour of a dark, diverse and wildly imaginative hybrid of their own creation, Witherfall stood out from the start. 2018’s A Prelude To Sorrow was a modern benchmark for the genre, which means that The Curse… is the LA crew’s consecutive stone cold classic. The band’s technical chops and masterful blending of multiple metal genres are impressive enough, but these songs are beautifully crafted, too. Spanning crushing death metal dirges and ornate, Queenlike grandeur, As I Like Awake and The Other Side Of Fear thunder and squall imperiously, dense with emotion and with eccentric ideas, with Joseph Michael’s multi-octave delivery providing the music’s throbbing heart. The whole thing is fucking stunning. These men are gods.