EP REVIEW: Kataan – Kataan

As the weather’s getting warmer and lockdown is starting to ease, it seems like a good time to remind everybody that happiness is fleeting, existence is meaningless and everything dies. And what better way to do that than with the new EP from KATAAN. This two-man project consisting of Nicholas Thornbury (VATTNET VISKAR) and Brett Boland (ASTRONOID) have managed to create a desperately bleak first impression. They deal in the blackest of death metal and could turn a cheerful barbecue in the sun into a depressing void where optimism is just something that happens to other people.

So yes, it’s a difficult listen but it’s also quite impressive. The four tracks on offer are inventive and a lot of skill has gone into their creation. They’re as harrowing as a graveyard tour led by Werner Herzog, but there’s a depth to this music beyond the surface anguish.

Erase for instance is a song that arrives on a riff that was forcibly dragged out of another realm. The stage is set for an icy blast of pain and it certainly delivers, but it also has some quality guitar work and Thornbury’s versatile vocals to admire. Abyss has instrumental sections that carry a tremendous emotional heft, while Processor has an unbelievably gnarly opening and descends into hell at a rapid rate. The vocals sound like they’re echoing off the walls of a torture chamber, the rhythm section may as well be chained to a galley patrolling the river Styx and the guitars all but herald the end times.

Whilst it impressive though, KATAAN‘s EP is very much a mood piece. If it’s 1am, you’re depressed and you’ve realised too late that your dealer sold you something stronger than you asked for, this would certainly be appropriate listening material. But at any other time, it’s a difficult one to stomach. It’s only twenty-three minutes long, but it’s also unrelentingly dark.

With that in mind, we’d recommend KATAAN but only cautiously. Their self-titled EP is a grim and nihilistic experience, but it’s also imaginative and ambitious. These two guys are very good at taking death metal, burning it to a crisp and howling their grief into the wind. These four songs will smother your hopes like a suffocating cloud of toxic gas, but they’re well-designed and strangely enthralling. Just make sure you’ve got a LESS THAN JAKE album or similar on standby for when it’s finished, Jesus Christ…

Rating: 7/10

Kataan is set for release on May 7th via Prosthetic Records.

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