Review by chrisc7249 on April 5, 2022.

By 1995, technical death metal had long solidified itself as a separate entity from just regular death metal. Hell, in 1995, everyone was playing something OTHER than just traditional death metal. Over in Poland, well, they had a pretty solid technical death metal scene in the early to mid 90s that consisted of some pretty damn good bands.

The album highlighted here is the debut of Polish tech-masters Catharsis, their lone release of the 20th century before their near two-decade long split. Seeing as it's 1995, Catharsis isn't going to get the pass of someone like their fellow countrymen Violent Dirge. They have competition to stand out amongst, even in something as niched as tech death (Violent Dirge themselves released their second album in the same year.) Not to mention you have to compete with… Death. Add Hieronymus Bosch, Succubus and Tempestas to that list and all of a sudden it seems like Catharsis may fade into obscurity.

Thankfully, Catharsis does not fall short of their "requirements," and, despite the album really only having 5 genuine songs, each track is memorable and stands out among the crowd, and provides a unique sound worthy of returning to time and time again.

I'd say this album most closely resembles Death's "Individual Thought Patterns," a nice mix of true technical death metal, prog elements and a good sense of melody. Each one of the instruments is played damn well, and the production, although definitely rough around the edges, gives every instrument a little breathing room to be audible. The fretless(?) bass on this record offers a sound that can really only be marked down to Catharsis. Something about the bass player, perhaps the way it sounds, especially through the slightly muffled quality is… beautifully unique. I can't quite pinpoint it but I enjoy his work very much. As for the guitars, well, they bounce around the fretboard and play Chuck-esque riffs, perhaps dashed with a bit of Atheist's more spastic changes. Nothing special, but impressive musicianship nonetheless. The drummer, unfortunately, doesn't really stand out too much as I cannot recall much from his performance that really stuck with me. That's not to say he's inept, far from it, but I don't get as much out of the drumming as I do with other tech records (this could be because of the production which gives the drums a very flat, subdued sound.)

The vocals are death metal vocals. I don't know what more I'm supposed to say on this.

The final (real) track on this album 'Breath Of Death' is perhaps the finest track of the album and not only encompasses what came before it, but also builds on some new ideas they didn't experiment with previously. This track is very jazzy, and it reminds me a lot of Cynic, especially when the semi-vocoded vocals come in towards the middle. The bass player absolutely slays it on this song, the melodies are some of their most chaotic and even the drummer picks this song up with some tight cymbal work.

Overall, Catharsis surely isn't the most original band out there, even within their own field of music, but sometimes just doing something unoriginal but correctly is better than trying something new and falling flat on your face. I have not heard their reunion album, but I expect it to build off of the ideas showcased here, perhaps modern up the sound a bit. If it's anything like this, it's worth a listen.

FFO: Death, Atheist, Cynic (stale, I know.)

Favorite tracks: 'I Wish To Be As Free As…', 'Breath Of Death'

Rating: 8 out of 10