Kataklysm

Kataklysm - In the Arms of Devastation
Nuclear Blast, 2006
Genre: Death Metal/something bad

1. Like Angels Weeping (The Dark)
2. Let Them Burn
3. Crippled and Broken
4. To Reign Again
5. It Turns to Rust
6. Open Scars
7. Temptation's Nest
8. In Words of Desperation
9. The Road to Devastation

I just got back from my local record chain from purchasing this album (this chain is pretty strict to just my area and they have a lot of Black and Death Metal material in stock that the major chains wouldn’t).  I figured I might enjoy it a little bit, I thought “Serenity in Fire” was a decent release.  By no means something I would pull out constantly to listen to over and over again, but every once in a great while it would be good.  So, I have just finished listening to this album and I have come up with some warning signs our readers can look for to note that the album they’re about to purchase might suck.

The number one warning sign to behold on this disc is “As seen on MTV 2.”  Things that brandish an MTV logo here in the United States usually bear the connotation that the music you are going to put on actually is very poorly done.  That is ever present on “Crippled and Broken” when they launch into this horrible Nu-Metal riff.  I never thought I would see the day Kataklysm pulled off such an idiotic stunt, but here it is.  Nuclear Blast has claimed another victim in the sell-out department apparently.

The second factor that is a warning sign on the cover is, it states “The record Death Metal has been waiting for!” then when you listen to it you hear all this rehashed work and more popularized guitar riffs and you wonder to yourself, “this is what everyone’s waiting for?”  I sure as hell don’t think everyone is waiting for this.  If this is what everyone is waiting for then that is a very sad thing indeed and I believe Death Metal has forever lost any semblance of an edge it once had.

Now you would think you would hear some typical Kataklysm approaches to most songs, such as their trade-mark blast beat sequences and with their old drummer back in the band one would think that this standard would at least be present.  Nope.  It’s just all boring all the time, with no intensity.  I think there was a whopping one song where you hear the blast beat, and it’s not a fast one at that.  Further problems are abounding in this album when it comes to the guitar arrangements.  “Like Angels Weeping (The Dark)” could actually be termed as closing with a breakdown riff common to the “core” genres.  You know the part where the audience starts punching the floor and looks increasingly stupid like the waste of human flesh they all are.  Yeah, any avid Black Metal listener will actually understand what I am speaking of.  Anyway, aside from those riffs, they maintained the slower styled riff patterns on “Serenity in Fire,” and rarely vary out of it on this album.  This has a bit more “groove” to it, but it’s certainly not in a good way, for I found the transitions rather haphazard, especially when they try to genre cross because they suddenly feel the need to be “diverse.”  Most of the guitar work just feels like it’s rehashed from previous Kataklysm albums, probably from “Shadows and Dust” and up.  Other than that a lot of the riffs feel like they were used on a Black Dahlia Murder album… and I really don’t think they’re anything special for obvious reasons.  I’d comment on the vocals but they’re basically the same as they have been on the previous two Kataklysm albums, so nothing worth stating here that won’t be stated in reviews for the previous works.

Needless to say, I don’t believe I will ever be listening to this album again.  I don’t think I’m going to waste my time even checking out following Katalkysm albums.  I was planning on doing a Graveland review tonight, but I was just so angry after having purchased this album that I just needed to sit down and tell my readers and whoever else is out there in the world to stay away from it.  This is the album Death Metal has been waiting to throw away!