Kataklysm - Goliath - Metal Epidemic

Kataklysm – Goliath
Release Date: 11th August 2023
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Order/Stream
Genre: Extreme Metal, Death Metal, Groove Metal, Melodic Death Metal.
FFO: At The Gates, Hypocrisy, Decapitated, Disbelief, Illdisposed, Hackneyed, Ex Deo.
Review By: Mark Young

This is Kataklysm’s 15^th full-length album and in it, they show no sign of slowing down, mellowing out and engaging in the wearing of house coats or slippers. With an album named Goliath, you expect it to just destroy all in its path, and sonically, this is exactly what they do. It’s hard to describe, and find unused ways of saying that this thing is a product of four severely pissed off individuals. As you might guess, press releases for heavy music are always saying “this is their heaviest yet, or this is “a new way of” you get the general picture. Here, the accompanying press had similar comments but, on the songs, contained they actually meant it. This is a 40-minute blast of controlled and the uncontrolled, of the blast beat and the subtle, all woven together with the experience that releasing 15 albums brings.

The Redeemer is such an example of this, a slow build that explodes into some of the most vital sounding extreme metal I’ve heard in a while. It just absolutely slays and is as heavy as it comes. Heroes to Villains has a touch of that Swedish sound to it, but this beast is all of their own creation. These two are latter tracks and just show that their energy and attack doesn’t drop off in any way. I suppose it is difficult to be in a certain tuning and not sound like other bands, and I’ll be honest there is a familiarity running through it, but it is only fleeting and doesn’t detract.

But I am getting ahead of myself, as the lead track, Dark Wings of Deception is a corker of a thing, just demolishing all in its way and is a strong as start as any song in recent memory and the title track, Goliath is exactly that, just devastating in attack.

What we have is a band that sounds as fresh and exciting as they did with their first release, as opposed to one that is content to rehash or recycle previous ideas and approaches. It’s not all full speed ahead as Gravestones and Coffins shows that they can do that slower, prolonged riff out that twists and turns, using that slow / fast approach so well and on The Sacrifice for Truth they leave the best for last. This one has that simple approach that embeds itself into the memory by just bringing subtle melody into play and is the sound of a band completely comfortable in itself, as well as being still able to write and deliver crushing songs.

Goliath is exactly that, it’s a monstrous beast that shows they are continually looking forward to developing and stretch themselves. The sound they have now is a sound that I find familiar, and I’d love to be able to say otherwise, but I can’t. Reading this back seems as though it is contradictory to on one hand say the album is this but reminds me of that. It’s likely that this could just be me, but how they sound (which is heavy AF by the way) does not impact upon the songs presented here. This is not a band that chucks a few riff ideas together and calls them songs. This is brutal, modern metal, and I suspect there is plenty more to come from them.