For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past ten years or so, Finland's
Catamenia have been playing a style of folksy melodic "black" metal akin to country mates
Kalmah. They've released nine albums, within a fifteen year span of time, all through
Massacre records. So they must have been doing something right. It's been about 2 years since their last release,
VIII : the Time Unchained. This newest album is entitled
Cavalcade, which means a procession of knights on horesback. This time around, the band has progressed on to experimenting with metalic influences of different genres, outside of Finland.
The first track,
Blood Trails, features Ville Laihialla(of
Poisonblack) on guest vocals. This song rocks at a medium speed with a soothing and pleasing tone. It reminds me of the style of
In Flames.
Cavalcade,
Silence, and
Reincarnation also rock at a medium pace with the Gothenburg style of melodic death metal. Those songs can also be compared to recent
In Flames music. Quantity Of
Sadness and a Callous Mind grind at a faster speed, with intervals of melodic guitar hooks. Those two songs sound more comparable to
Dark Tranquillity.
The
Path That Lies Behind Me combines the mild Gothenburg style with the alternative rock style of the Goo Goo Dolls. I can also detect a slight influence from The Offspring in this song. The grim vocal interludes are the biggest difference from this song not being real alternative rock music. the vocal approaches sound very nice on that song.
Post Mortem is a lively, yet slightly corny song, which is broken up with insertions of guitar hooks that sound a lot like
Running Wild, from their song Marooned (from Death Or
Glory). The Vultures Feast is a slower and more sophisticated song, with some very complicated guitar structures. It has an old southern fried sound like
Lynyrd Skynyrd, from the 1970's. It's got some beautiful choruses and still comes through with a hint of the Gothenburg style.
Angry Again is a cover of a 1990's
Megadeth song. Their rendition of it is so good, that I can only recognize the difference of the grim vocals, from sounding blatantly different than the
Megadeth original.
This is a refreshing step forward for this band. The progress that they have made with their song writing, by adding the influences of Gothenburg death metal mixed with 1990's American alternative rock has worked really well on this album. My taste of metal music has changed recently. I enjoy metalcore bands like
Blessthefall and
As I Lay Dying, they also add a touch of alternative rock sound to their metal. But
Catamenia are definitely not metalcore, because they lack the punk rock influence. Instead of that, they've got the Gothenburg influence. If they keep this up, then SOM will have to change their genre listing from melodic black metal into melodic death metal. Most of the fans seem to prefer
Dark Tranquillity's new album, We Are
The Void. But I prefer this album over that one, because I can relate to it better.
But I disagree on the way you are telling that this album is better than the others, given that something's missing in the whole album...the line up is no longer the same, consequently it is very difficult to find the same identity, the same spirit all along the album. Furthemore, the cold atmospheres are missing for more common atmospheres, it is a shame. "Location Cold" and "Eternal Winter's Prophecy" were very good albums in this genre, cold, melodic, with a great part of velocity and a warrior spirit (especially the clean vocals).
All Catamenia's albums are not perfect, and not excellent either, they are just good, even very good if you take to account the whole discography of the band. "Cavalcade", despite his refreshing step as you said in your review, is not as good as expected.
Last thing : why did you add a video that doesn't belong to the album? You show something which is not representative of the album you introduce in your review...
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