Blimey what a difference an album can make! Well it’s not like Catamenia haven’t been changing constantly both in style and with an ever revolving band line up, but the results on the Finns ninth studio album are not to my liking at all. On reviewing its predecessor ‘VIII The Time Unchained’ I was happy to give it a 7.5 mark and enjoyed the album noting that the clean croons of Kari Vähäkuopus had etched their way into the band’s style a bit more but that it was still a good solid effort with lots of a feral assaults and a rampaging warrior-battle mindset coursing through it. Now however these have multiplied dragging the band much further away from their former melodic black metal roots and if anything making this new album akin to a bad Sentenced covers bands without their good grasp of melody to boot. Apparently main singer Olli Mustonen left the band for undisclosed reasons and has been replaced by Ari Nissilä on lead vocals and listening to the albums back to back I can only say they were a damn sight better before. The other notable difference is the album sleeve, their first one without a wolf on it and just a dull bland plain design, a bit like the music contained within.
‘Blood Trails’ immediately loses the fast assault and goes mid-pace and the now lead vocals are croaky rather than gruff and commanding and it is not long before the Sentenced, Metallica laced croons join in. It is a song we have heard a thousand times by other bands without the originality that we know Catamenia are capable of. Funny I should mentioned that ‘other’ Finnish band so much, as a quick look at Metal Archives tells me that the full album has two covers on the end of it (which my promo does not include) one by Megadeth and another by Sentenced, now there’s a surprise and one in a way I am glad I do not have to hear. Attempts at low growling come out on the title track although the clean style is at the front here and they sound forced and just for me do not work at all. Whatever the opposite of a ‘killer chorus’ is they seem to have found it on ‘Post Mortem’ which sounds all off key and all over the place, the following slow boring ballad ‘The Vulture’s Feast’ doesn’t help either. Finally there is some balls to ‘A Callous Mind’ but by track eight it’s a case of too late and after the first snap of anger the song slows into another damn crooner. As for the prog riff on final number ‘Angry Again’ which actually isn’t all that angry, what’s that all about?
I think it is pretty evident that I do not like this and although I spent a long time looking for positive things to say about Cavalcade I have pretty much failed. Perhaps if a TV programme called “when good bands go bad” is commissioned this one might be up for some publicity. I wonder if the rest of the group’s fans are going to feel similar as I did on hearing this? Hopefully it’s a one off folly after all we already had one Sentenced and they are never going to be bettered.
http://www.catamenia.net
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