In all of my high school days listening to heavy metal, I don’t
\never remember getting into the death metal band Obituary. I might
\nhave one of their cassettes floating around in the Pierce Memorial
\nArchives – cripes, Elvis himself could be in there somewhere, and I
\nwouldn’t know about it – but I’ve never had a burning desire to
\npick up the band’s entire discography.<\/p>\n
Trevor Peres was the guitar sound behind Obituary, and he brings
\nhis talents to his new group, Catastrophic. Their debut album,
\nThe Cleansing<\/i>, is the kind of disc which will make you
\nadmire how this band refuses to be locked into one particular style
\nof metal. But they are also the kind of band who will challenge you
\nto read the lyric sheet to understand the messages they’re trying
\nto get across. While some songs are left to be a bit cryptic,
\nCatastrophic challenges people to think – and that’s a refreshing
\nchange of pace.<\/p>\n
The band – Peres, vocalist Keith DeVito, lead guitarist Chris
\nBasile, bassist Brian Hobbie and drummer Rob Maresca – could have
\neasily settled into a co-existence playing nothing but speed metal,
\nand they undoubtedly would have done well. But this band seems to
\nknow that a well-rounded musical diet is better for everyone
\ninvolved, and they dare to slow things down and – egads! – throw
\nthe occasional melody into the mix. It’s a different way of
\nthinking about metal – and it works well. For every
\nballs-to-the-wall track like “Balancing The Furies,” there’s
\nanother track that keeps balances in check, such as “Hate
\nTrade”.<\/p>\n
But what separates Catastrophic from many other groups is that
\nthere is more to what they’re singing about on
\nThe Cleansing<\/i> than your typical gloom-n-doom associated with
\nthis kind of metal. I admit I could be missing the point of one or
\ntwo songs, as Catastrophic occasionally dive into the cryptic,
\nleaving some songs open for individual interpretation – for
\nexample, is “Messiah Pacified” a song promoting some kind of
\nreligious belief or backhanding the actions of those doing their
\nactions “by the motions”?<\/p>\n
The messages in other songs are not as hard to decipher, from
\nthe decrial of preaching the gospel of intolerance (“Hate Trade”)
\nto the warning of the environmental damage we’ve done coming back
\nto bite us (“Terraform”) to the declaration that we’re trying to
\ntake science too far (“Balancing The Furies”). DeVito’s vocals are
\noccasionally obscured by the style of music that Catastrophic
\nplays, but he’s surprisingly clear for the balance of time. Whether
\nyou listen to what DeVito is singing or you read about it in the
\nliner notes, Catastrophic challenges you to think.<\/p>\n
\nThe Cleansing<\/i> is an entertaining listen, especially for fans
\nof thrash metal (and, undoubtedly, Obituary). and pushes the
\nenvelope of how people will think of this style of metal. Who
\nknows? You might actually like using your mind for recreational
\npurposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7652],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-39548","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-catastrophic","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39548"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}