Review by Krys on March 15, 2001.

Some people just can’t live without making music… and that’s great. One of them is Trevor Peres, member of no longer existent death metal gods Obituary. Because of his burning passion to create extreme sounds, with help of Keith DeVito, Chris Basile, Brian Hobbie and Rob Maresca, all members of the New York based metal powerhouse Pyrexia, he has developed a new band called Catastrophic.

By saying all that about the history of this band, it shouldn’t come to your surprise that "The Cleansing", their debut CD, will remind you of the great Obituary days. Big time! A few notes from the first track, "Hate Trade", will unmistakably bring you all those memories. The characteristic tone and riffs of Peres’ guitar dominate this whole album. Tracks like "Messiah Pacified", "The Veil" or "Jesters of the Millennium" could easily end up on a Obituary’s "Cause OF Death" or "The End Complete" disc.

But don’t make any assumptions yet! Catastrophic is NOT a carbon copy of Obituary. Although the guitar work is clearly modeled after the Obituary sound, very often those guys really like to crank up the tempo on their compositions. Other than the aggressive drum-molesting section, the vocals of Keith DeVito are also quite different from John Tardy’s lines. Overall, the "The Cleansing" is just a delicious piece of rotten death metal meat which I’ll recommend to any hungry metal fan.

Bottom Line: Make some free space on your shelf, you need this CD.

Rating: 9 out of 10