| America is about to enter what the old Chinese curse called “interesting times”; as is America’s tendency, we will probably drag much of the rest of the world with us. Music usually takes on greater power in such times -- there are conflicting urges within musicians and audiences alike, with the desire to indulge in lighter, more escapist fare no more or less pronounced than the desire to hear music that articulates one’s personal feelings about the issues of the day. Kataklysm represents the third path: the expression of the latent rage that’s ever-present and too seldom given berth. They’re singing about (or they seem to be singing about: it is hard to say) subjects that wouldn’t get such naturalistic treatment if they got covered at all in pop songs: Nero’s Rome, for example, or the carnage at Golgotha. You should get Kataklysm’s new record, and you should punch the repeat button on your CD player until you lock into its evil groove. In a time of overplayed Lee Greenwood and U2 records, Epic: the Poetry of War is both more realistic and less pessimistic about an audience’s ability to handle the harsher side of things. |
