About seven years ago I caught Cataract supporting the now defunct Stamping Ground at a Leeds pub and was thoroughly impressed with the bands hardcore energy. However my attention to this Swiss band must have been distracted as since then they have released two further albums which passed me by until this their sixth album called “Killing The Eternal”. In the past the band was mainly hardcore but as time has gone they’ve morphed into a thrash band but still retained some of the hardcore anger.
“Never” has an excellent brutish thrash riff to start the album as the vocals drew me back to the melodic hardcore days of bands like Stamping Ground and Hatebreed obviously. Cataract incorporate tons of riffs and harmonies into their songs yet bolster everything with a hardcore bounce that creates a catchy edge without resorting too much to macho gang chants. The riffing is vicious and very much in your face on “Lost Souls” as Carnal Forge’s face ripping assault comes to mind. There is a clinical aspect to this album as the riffs cut cleanly leaving little in the way of technicality as “Reap The Outcasts” brings out the first beatdown. The title track is a little weird, being an instrumental that builds nicely before abruptly ending. The massive Slayer touch on “Urban Waste” is very conspicuous as the track chops and changes with veritable ease creating a very catchy song that stomps hard on your miserable spotty face.
The heaviness is something that is very noticeable on this album with the band preferring to pummel the life out of you with double bass and vicious riffs rather than use predictable beatdowns to do it. “Hollow Steps” has a simple melody which gets your head nodding but has a huge influx of double bass and a great time change. A couple of the songs passed me by in over familiarity as they tend to be a little slower in a vein similar to second album The Haunted. I fully expect these songs to be absolute killers in the live environment, exactly the place to unleash their violence as Cataract tread the thrashcore scene with little competition at the moment and whilst this isn’t monumental groundbreaking material its damn catchy and packed with sadistic riffs, stomping drums and macho vocals.
http://www.cataract-collective.com
http://www.myspace.com/cataract
