Thursday, January 8, 2015

Kataklysm - The Unholy Signature


:34 mark


Weird album. Progressive front cover and song titles, but death metal innards through and through. Very similar to Canadian compatriots Cryptopsy, but more European in melodic concept. Contrary to its solid and foundational title, Temple of Knowledge is an exploded, chaotic mess of blast and thrash beats, excellent/insane drummer Nick Miller (they’re on drummer #6, I think) dictating all style and change, guitar and bass trailing cautiously with each pass. The timidity of its riffs is a major weakness, the quartet relying heavily on vocalist Sylvain Houde to fill all remaining spaces. An obvious presence, Houde is a big bang in a suffocated vocal style, layering tracks upon tracks in tongues, some backwards, unexplained expulsions of alien noises in command, terror, anguish, desperation. Just so far gone from thick-riffed future assaults like Prophecy and Epic, the band recorded on Sorcery and Temple a passable experimentation of a genre in need of reinvention. Likely precursor to US death metal band Origin.

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