WITHERFALL – Sounds Of The Forgotten

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://www.witherfall.com/

The following expose is not a mere review – it is a personal reflection by a listener reborn.There are moments in a music fan’s life when an album doesn’t just impress—it devastates, heals, confronts, and ultimately resurrects you. Sounds Of The Forgotten²⁰²⁴, the fourth full-length offering from Los Angeles metal visionaries Witherfall released on last year’s May 31st via band’s own Deathwave Records , is one such record. I don’t use words like masterpiece lightly, but in this case, it’s not just deserved—it’s necessary.

From the very first thunderous riffs of “They Will Let You Down” to the pained and cinematic farewell of “What Have You Done?”, I found myself swept into a vast soundscape of technical brilliance, emotional candor, and unflinching personal reckoning. This isn’t just music—it’s a statement of identity, survival, and reclamation.

Most satisfyingly to me personally, Witherfall’s is a history stained (through no fault of their own) and redeemed. Founded in 2013 by guitarist Jake Dreyer and vocalist/keyboardist Joseph Michael Furney, Witherfall has always stood at the intersection of technical prowess and poetic intensity. Early records like Nocturnes and Requiems²⁰¹⁷ and A Prelude to Sorrow²⁰¹⁸ showcased an almost prophetic blend of power, speed, progressive, and thrash metal—an explosive foundation further honed on Curse Of Autumn²⁰²¹.

Yet, Curse Of Autumn was an album shadowed by an ethical dilemma: its producer and Dreyer’s then-associate, Jon Ryan Schaffer, was arrested for his role in the January 6th, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. As a U.S. Army veteran and foreign-born citizen naturalized a U.S. citizen after my service in the U.S. Army, I wrote at the time how uncomfortable this made me. Schaffer’s actions betrayed everything I stood for, everything decent Americans stand for. And Curse Of Autumn, brilliant though it was, bore his tainted spiritual DNA.

But Sounds Of The Forgotten is the antidote. It is a severance. It is a full-bodied repudiation of that past, breaking ties with treachery so let me say this clearly: this album earns my deepest respect not only because of its musical excellence, but because of what it represents. Jacob Dreyer and fellow ex-Iced Earth members Stu Block and Luke Appleton walked away from a band that was once their livelihood. They chose integrity. And with Sounds Of The Forgotten, Witherfall puts an emphatic, creative bullet through the final threads that ever tied them to Jon Schaffer—a convicted domestic terrorist and Oath Keeper who pled guilty to attacking the U.S. Capitol with a dangerous weapon and later hid behind a dubious religious conversion and a presidential pardon that reeked of authoritarian quid pro quo. And so, the final track “What Have You Done?” isn’t just a musical exclamation point—it’s a funeral dirge for false brotherhoods. A lament for misled loyalty. A cry of rage and broken trust. When Furney and Dreyer ask, “Was there no other way?”, it pierces with divine heartbreak. It’s not just a song. It’s a damnation and a prayer, equal parts condemnation and hope for the kind of forgiveness that can only come after true repentance—a repentance Schaffer has never truly shown.

As for the album itself, it’s beyond perfect. Clocking in at just under 55 minutes, Sounds Of The Forgotten is one of the most impeccably produced, written, and performed metal albums of the last 20 years. With producer Christopher “Zeuss” Harris (Shadows Fall, God Forbid) behind the board, the sound is rich, punishing, and pristine.

Highlights? All of It, especially due to Furney’s minblowing vocals which echo Nevermore’s Warrel Dane (R.I.P.), King Diamond, James La Brie (Dream Theater), Geoff Tate (ex-Queensrÿche) Jon Bon Jovi, and even Sebastian Bach (Skid Row). But…

“They Will Let You Down” sets the tone with Nevermorian technical thrash energy and Death-inspired flourishes.

“Where Do I Begin?” is a melancholic epic in the vein of Annihilator’s “Phoenix Rising” and Nevermore’s “The Heart Collector”, yet utterly its own. This one is a personal favorite.

“Ceremony of Fire” fuses seductive vocals, flamenco guitar, and technical wizardry into a cohesive whole akin to classic Mercyful Fateian and King Diamondian structures.

“Insidious” is darkly theatrical, twisting between (again) Mercyful Fate, flamenco, and technical death metal, to say very little of Tchaikovsky’s coda.

And then “What Have You Done?”—perhaps the most personal, painful, and powerful song in the band’s catalog.

There are also three Deceased-like and early Sadist-ic instrumental tracks that serve as connective tissue—moody, eerie, almost cinematic, like ghosts whispering between the thunder.

With this album, Witherfall’s legacy is rewritten. More than a progression, it’s a transformation. Where Curse of Autumn was an artistic triumph wrapped in moral conflict, Sounds Of The Forgotten is freedom—musically, ethically, spiritually. It stands proudly beside the all-time greats: Nevermore’s Dead Heart In A Dead World¹⁹⁹⁹ or This Godless Endeavor²⁰⁰⁵, Dream Theater’s Awake¹⁹⁹⁴, or Control Denied’s The Fragile Art of Existence¹⁹⁹⁸. And in the face of cowardice and betrayal, it asserts bravery and beauty.

I can’t overstate this: Sounds Of The Forgotten is a modern classic—a ferocious work of art that reclaims legacy from the jaws of shame and redirects the band’s trajectory straight into the pantheon.

Buy it. Support these men. Let this record cleanse your ears and conscience because music this good deserves to be remembered. And because some betrayals deserve to be burned out in exquisite monumental emotional cathartic dirges.