Review Summary: Katalepsy's attempt at evilution.
Triumph of Evilution sees Russia's worst kept secret improve on their already-crushing style of slam death metal. Katalepsy completely outdoes their debut, 2007’s
Musick Brings Injuries in every way possible – more variation, more focus, better vocal delivery and riffs everywhere. Opening track “Post-Apocalyptic Segregation” sets the tone for the EP, which falls just short of eighteen minutes. Here, Katalepsy jump around between various riffs backed by an extremely competent drummer, Andrey Potsionov, who proves himself as being one of the band’s strongest musicians, as he consistently demonstrates that extremely high tempos are no challenge to him. Another aspect that the band deserves praise on is their use of samples. Although they were prominent on the debut, here they benefit the music massively, often creating an atmosphere as opposed to just being there to make the music sound evil.
The vocals are handled by Ruslan Iskandaroff, who deserves a whole paragraph to himself. Vocally, Iskandaroff has never been more on form. The EP sees him adding more variation into his delivery, which has improved massively since
Musick Brings Injuries, with the addition of better inhales and massively-improved gutturals, which sound perfectly disgusting and filthy over the bludgeoning of grooves and breakdowns.
Second track “Carpet Wounding” proves to be one of the EP’s best tracks, featuring a couple of clips from the movie “Saw” and an absolutely devastating breakdown, the track seems to be slow on the surface but quickly tears through its four minute running time that highlights snare marches, grinds and blast beats, all commanded by Potsionov’s uncompromising drumming. The production job is better this time around, but make no mistake – Katalepsy are still raw as hell. The riffs tear through penultimate song “Hurricane Tearing Sinew,” which sees the vocals rise to shrieks and the guitars often harmonize perfectly.
Overall,
Triumph of Evilution is a continuation of the band’s debut, but also acts as the stepping-stone for their latest release, Autopsychosis. Amidst a genre that’s filled with sh
it, Katalepsy stand out as the diamond in the rough, proving themselves yet again with their new refined sound.
