Review by Dominik on August 22, 2025.

Sometimes I enjoy when something hits me out of the blue. And no, not lightning, because that's just God playing darts. "Catharsis Till Dawn" is exactly that kind of "something". Picture this: you're at the office or home, the news is full of orange-painted nonsense, a steady drip of autocratic absurdity, your wife is yelling at you because you didn't take out the trash, and you're hunting for a release valve before you start stapling paperwork to people's foreheads or using the office printer as a stress-relief piñata. Then your latest CD mail order arrives, and in that moment, Taär's debut album makes its entrance. Within two minutes listening, you know this might be your salvation, the outlet you were looking for.

The Greek/Swiss commando doesn't waste time revealing their mission: sonic annihilation via the proven classic black metal arsenal—blast beats in abundance, riffs colder than your boss's morning greeting, some subtle melodies that clearly spent their gap year in Sweden, occasional restraint when appropriate, and a vocalist who sounds genuinely possessed. The production puts every strike exactly where it hurts, and the musicians' collective experience in other projects seeps through every note. This doesn't sound like a band trying to prove themselves. This is a band that's skipped the proving stage and has gone straight to the skull-crushing-destroy-your-stereo-stage.

"Any flaws?" you ask. Sure, if you're the kind of person who's offended by dessert forks being on the wrong side of the plate or someone, who never had a hearty laugh in their lives. For the nitpicks there are three in total. First: the opener fades out. Who the hell does that? Fading out an excellent black metal track is like letting your grandfather quietly wander out of the room mid-rant. Second: despite the overall aggression and relentless sonic bashing, the band had the wonderful idea to end the album with an ambient outro. If you've never encountered this before, congratulations. I have. It's like being served a cup of herbal tea right after chugging a full bottle of strong Irish whiskey. Third: "The Impaler's Triumph". It's a good song—no question—but it's paced differently from the rest, dragging slightly for three minutes before returning to destroy your eardrums and finally handing things off to the outro. I agree, deviation can be healthy, but here it cracks the airtight momentum the album built so far. For me it feels like your best friend who tells a joke, manages to nail the punchline, and then keeps explaining it for three more minutes.

Everything else? Bull's-eye after bull's-eye. Despite its fade-out, "Celestial Carnage" grips you instantly. The simple riffing has a certain lightness—reminiscent of "Panzer Division Marduk"—without being a copy. The band's method is clear in the first 90 seconds: frantic blasting broken by short, mid-tempo sections, sometimes grooving, sometimes laying the foundation for the next onslaught. The vocalist pretty much nails it. Though also active in the death/black metal combo Anticreation, his approach is pure black metal. No death metal growls, no distant echoes from the abyss. Just aggression, sometimes imploring, sometimes menacing, and occasionally drifting into a mocking rage.

"Feathered Echoes Of Wrath" pushes things even further. There's a faint echo of Greek barbarians Hate Manifesto here—if they'd swapped death metal for black—but the Marduk shadow from the opener is gone. The last minute is pure auditory shrapnel, still lingering in your head as the next assault, "The Storm Of War", begins. That track introduces itself with rolling war drums, followed by another case of blast-beat chaos. In this moment, you can almost imagine cowering in a rain-soaked trench while machine-gun fire and artillery howl around you. Around the 3:30 mark, a sliver of melody cuts through the noise before the pace slows down. The song's final stretch hammers home the point: war is pain, misery, and exhaustion—not glory. That musical theme bleeds neatly into the next song, giving the album the cohesion I mentioned earlier.

While I could easily highlight every track, one last standout deserves mention: "Where Death Stalks Its Prey". It has a stubborn streak I appreciate—it reminds you of countless other black metal songs but resists direct comparison. It is bulldozing forward with precision blasts, fleeting reprieves, and zero compromise on intensity. The song exudes a single-minded determination of an apex predator that doesn't bother with stealth. If death really stalked this way, there'd absolutely be no subtlety or hesitation. Just the brutal certainty that the prey won't make it.

Normally, I'm among the first to criticize when it's unclear where a musician's main focus lies, and the band's effort feels spread across too many projects. Here, Taär's collective history clearly sharpened their edge. "Catharsis Till Dawn" is aggressive, cohesive, and memorable from the first strike to the questionable tea service at the end. But when the music's this good, who's counting? Well… obviously me. Anyhow, if this album doesn't hit at least one nerve in you, you might need to check if you have any left.

Rating: 8.7 out of 10, because perfection is for liars and tax accountants.