Kataplexia continue delivering shocks with their second album. The band is now three times bigger than during the debut 'Morgue's Reality' (2003), which was created by Rodrigo "Fatality" Artiga (also Kabak, ex-Deepred). Now the man sits behind his drumkit and does all inhuman voices. Mikael Da Costa plays bass and Davi Moreira (also Talvella) guitars.

Fans of Kataplexia's debut, be not afraid. The band's metal is still North American style take on death metal. Dying Fetus, Suffocation and such are listed as their influences and it's easy to hear why. Kataplexia do not try to bring any other nuances into their brutality. At least the songs are good, sometimes very catchy. Well, not "pop" catchy of course. Even though there is a lot of tempo changes going on all the time, from quivering blast beat and vortex-like riffing to slower and heavier 90 degree headbang movement, it's all fluidy enough not to drop listener off in all its curves. Mainly Kataplexia have sticked to fast stuff, here's no typical groove factor to be heard. The album is very short, only around 25 minutes. Plus, 'Morgue's Reality' is a re-recording of the debut's title song. This, of course, decreases value for money (and score). Okay, there's a video clip of 'Brutal Addiction' as bonus, but it's cheap and not brutal enough, heh. Surely this can cause a lot of neck snappings even during its short playing time anyways. I don't really like the vocals here. Very low pig-grunt is Fatality's main voice, spiced with throat-cracking screams in vein of one Chris Barnes. Quite inhuman yet not really brutal in my opinion.

This album was recorded by Jani Loikas again. The debut was definitely rawer, at least in guitar/bass departments. On 'Catastrophic Scenes', instruments have been given their space and therefore the sound is cleaner, but brutality has been maintained well. However, as there's one guitarist in the band, there's one guitar on the album, at least for a lot of time, also affect to the sound. Snappy sounding snare is still present, but it's more powerful now, definitely better this time around. Generally the album sound brutal enough and well mixed, organic without too much of studio trickery.

Same ending comments, as for the debut album: nothing new, but well done. Actually, better than many of today's well known death metal bands. Songs are catchier than on the debut, but this might also be because of cleaner production job. North American style death metal fanatics should grab 'Catastrophic Scenes' for suitable price, because I'd rather call this a mini CD.

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/31/2005 13:31