KATAKLYSM AND METAL PREVAIL

Canada’s Kataklysm are one of those bands that don’t necessarily do very much different from album to album – which is not to say that they don’t do things better from album to album. So while fans probably know what to expect from the band’s latest, Prevail (released yesterday on Nuclear Blast) – more thrashy, groove laden melodic death metal – they won’t be prepared for how much fun it is to listen to.

Kataklysm have always made Fuckin’ Metal with a capital “F-M,” and Prevail is no different. If the lyrics like “Prevail/Like a venomous snake/Ready to strike and dominate” turn you off, then this ain’t the album for you. But if you’re looking for straightforward, crushing metal that is in no way, shape, or form ashamed of its metalness, Prevail should be right up your alley.

Every song on the album is pretty fuckin’ good, but as I’ve stated before, I personally find the band to be at their most powerful when they slow things down; tracks like “Blood in Heaven,” “Taking the World by Storm” and “To the Throne of Sorrow” lumber like wooly fucking mammoths that trample every living thing in their path. While every thrash and death metal band in the world has spent the past two decades following Slayer’s First Law of Faster is Better, Kataklysm seems to understand how much more painful it can be to slowly crush an enemy’s head in a vice rather than just brain him right there on the spot.

At the end of the day, Prevail isn’t a masterpiece, and it probably won’t change your life. But like I said, it is a fuckuva lotta fun to listen to.

(three and a half out of five horns)

-AR