16/02/2014

Katahajime-Summer '13 tour tape & Fall '13 tour tape & st cd '13

The band with the weird name, Katahajime, is a quartet who come from Lehigh valley, Pennsylvania United States and here is their complete discograpy, they are a new band and so far they released two tapes and one cd, all releases came out in 2013, the name is pronounced Kah/ta/ha/ja/may, its a term in judo and it means chokehold or something like that.. I had a problem while i started listening this band: i started with the Fall '13 tape but i had to stop for the Summer '13 tape because was previously released, then i had to do the same for thr st cd which is their first release since i wanted to catch their proggression as a band but hell, since a song starts i could't stop listening, this is so ingredibly good and makes you stick there until the end. This band is a diamond and deserves some attention: The s/t cd was recorded during the winter of  12-13 when the band was a trio, it consists six songs and lasts nearly thirty-five minutes delivering a blending of sludge/doom, crust with even black metal hints, there are beautiful acoustic parts, emotional doomy passages and the usual crust outbreaks, nice ideas in guitar riffs and beat changes all the time. A Bouquet Of Rotting Flowers Lining The Mass Graves Of Humanity  with its marvelous intro and structure proggression, is my fav. track here, lyric wise there is depression and sadness, "Suffocating under life's firm grasp,  I try to escape yet i cling to the past", the variety and blending of genres is great and the whole thing is interesting, the eleven minute elegy Night Terrors On The Eve Of The Winter Solstice closes the cd leaving ashes behind. Great! Summer '13 tape brings two tracks and nearly fourteen minutes of an amazing blending of crust and black metal, the first track, Dispose lasts nearly ten minutes and brings many parts, sometimes emotional and melodic, sometimes aggressive, sometimes faster, sometime slower. The second song is a piece of solid crust, heavy and melodic. I cought my self been mesmerized many times, the proggression of songs is so interesting, there are black metal influences, melodic leading parts, heavy guitar riffs and great lyrics: "Trapped in this web called life  No way out, no escape  Leave me here, here to rot  Suffering every day,I am disposable  With the dust I will bury my bones". Awesome! the Fall '13 Tour Tape is their last release, it delivers three songs, including a live recording of  A Bouquet Of Rotting.. great as the version of the eponymous cd, The Torch of Despair Burns Bright Through Nights of Desolation  opens with an acoustic parts, continues with  midpaced heavy passage that becomes a fast storm with a emotional break before the end. "Enslaved in Desolation, reflection’s all i see  Fragments of the past and what used to be".  Whispers of a Fading Existence starts with a sludge part that is followed by a d-beat driven crust part and ends with a haunting closing part. Honenstly, its hard not to feel a poetic mood while listenig this band and its hard to classify them to neocrust, blackened crust, post-hardcore post-crust, whatever, i think they are all these and the Atmospheric blackened crust term the band uses to describe their sound is not enough. All their releases are on bandcamp (follow the links in this text above) they also have a farcebook. Overall i can say these guys are great and stand equal to Fall of Effrafa and other bands of this level. Enjoy them! Future plan is a self released full lenght, don't miss this when come out!

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