Katharsis: VVorldVVithoutEnd
Few bands manage to take the aggression and downright ugly atmosphere of bands such as Darkthrone and Mayhem to new heights. Germany’s Katharsis is pure insanity in the truest sense. World Without End, from beginning to end, is in your face raw fast black metal that is very unique and yet nostalgic. Every proceeding minute of this album makes you colder than you were the minute before. With shrieks of pain being shouted in a somewhat ritualistic fashion at times and razzing and “buzz saw” guitars invoking the destruction of all that is pure and holy over and over again, this album significantly defines one of the undisputed bands leading the current wave in underground black metal: Katharsis.
First of all, without Drakh’s punishing and hideous vocals, this album wouldn’t be as good as it is. Not in a long time have I heard vocals with such demanding command in Black Metal such as these. Something I found very unordinary but yet useful is the Petrozza “End of the World”-like shrieks. For those of you who don’t know who Miland Petrozza and Tormentor is, they were a German Thrash band that later went on to form Kreator. Anyways, these shrieks Drakh uses throughout the album really give his vocals uniqueness of the likes of which I have never heard. Some of the harshest and uncompromising vocals I’ve ever heard.
As I said before, the guitars are very buzz saw like and more on the treble side, like all Katharsis releases. They slay through the whole album like early ‘90s Norwegian Black Metal, but in some cases they actually manage to pass even THOSE legendary bands of Norway in terms of riffing and the order of them. Both slow and face paced riffs are composed, tremolo is ever present here, as to be expected, and the guitar interludes scattered throughout some of the songs are fantastic, almost like a preview into the next realm of Hell itself.
The drums are, for the most part, extremely fast at some points and somewhat mellow at others. Cymbals colorfully fill the whole album, while old-school blast beats pound away in relentless turmoil, adding extra force to the guitars and vocals. The production fits well for this release, I would consider it more on the raw side, but definitely listenable and enjoyable. The volume of this album is deafeningly high though, which is a plus in some people’s book, mine especially.
This album doesn’t belong with the rest of the albums of 2006. It is too good to be put in that same category. This album won’t leave your cd player without exposing to you why it was there in the first place. I fail to find any flaws or uninteresting parts in this album, with that giving it even more credit for being an album with only 6 songs and taking over 50 minutes of your well spent time. Truly one of the best Black Metal albums of the 21st century, and I’ll even go as far to say that “World Without End” is one of the harshest, coldest, uncompromising, and ugly Black Metal albums ever released, in all honesty, it is that good. And what’s more, the booklet has these exact words written in it: “Listen in Darkness at maximum volume.” Definitely worth the money spent and then some, I recommend it to all Black Metal fans of the aforementioned qualities.
