Witheria
Painful Escape

March 2009
Released: 2009, Stay Heavy Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

It´s been 3 years since this Finnish retro-thrash combo, going under Witheria´s name, released their debut album. And I found it damn impressive as a matter of speaking. A hybrid of skilful and well-executed thrash and death metal growls did the trick for me, I guess.



On the band´s second album, PAINFUL ESCAPE, the guys are still on steroids, counting on the power of an ever-flowing stream of thrash riffage barricades, and just making sure the pulse is kept on a high level constantly. They have a familiar, repeated recipe going on in the songs on PAINFUL ESCAPE, in which the guitars steals most of the attention, simply because they are so well done and have got lots of power and aggression behind them. This stuff represents actually more of the same artillery of thrashing, aggressive madness that they have earlier churned out on their debut album INFERNAL MAZE already. It´s thoroughly enjoyable stuff here, and I sincerely believe this album will surely find a new home in many thrashers´ households.



One of the coolest and most beautiful numbers structurally that Witheria recorded for their 2nd effort, and also deserves a stronger mention over other songs on the album in my opinion, is a song titled "The Solitarium". It´s over a 7-minute long thrasher, but it never gets tedious to deserve a ´failed´ stamp as the song just keeps on flowing very nicely and effortlessly right to the very end. A beautifully structured song all in all, having lots of certain ´instant-hit-song´ charm to it, too. Another song on PAINFUL ESCAPE, which caught my attention right after the first spin, is the last song "Reflections”, which clocks in at the 8 minutes and 33 seconds mark. The song itself is the slowest tune on Witheria´s 2nd album, but it´s also the most melodic and creepiest one. A very good song for what it is, nevertheless.



As for the rest of the songs, like I said before, it´s all the same that doesn´t break their relentlessly thrashing yet safe formula too much from any of its corners at all. If you like it kinda fast and furious, with a never-ending burst of catchy riffs and stuff, you will most probably like this album as well. PAINFUL ESCAPE isn´t as solid and strong album content-wise as its predecessor in my opinion, but quite damn near anyway for still causing much enjoyment in many of our houses, full of fuckin´ metal.