Old-fart dB readers my recall the raging Deciboner we had for Withered’s 2005 Memento Mori debut LP, which came in at #4—JUST TWO SPOTS AHEAD OF TRIVIUM’S ASCENDANCY—on that year’s Decibel Top 40. The Atlanta natives followed It up with a pair of well-received albums for Prosthetic, but have been relatively quiet since 2010 Dualitas.

That silence ends today, as Decibel proudly unveils the first new music from black/death/doom behemoth’s forthcoming LP Grief Relic in the form of “Husk.”

“We felt the need to do something very intentional with Grief Relic,” guitarist/vocalist and band founder Mike Thompson tells Decibel. “You know that sense of timelessness you get when you go back and listen to some 20-year-old metal record and it’s just as relevant now as it ever was? It’s not really about nostalgia and definitely not about rehashing anything. Just the need to continue carving out a sonic identity like the great bands of the late ’80s and early ’90s. We focused on song arrangements and an album structure that would offer a real emotional experience and, of course, we loaded every song with a lot of typical Withered twists and turns. It’s progress for the sake of progress without abandoning our identity. ‘Husk’ was the first song we wrote for this album and it does a pretty good job of highlighting the kind of style traversing that can be expected from Grief Relic.

The band’s Season of Mist debut drops May 27, but you can—AND FUCKING SHOULD—pre-order Grief Relic here right after you jam “Husk.”