End of Catastrophe

When it comes to black / death metal, I mostly think of Necrophobic. Haunting melodies, satanic lyrics, profound vehemence, these are important ingredients of this style. But Basilisk do not share my point of view. Their only long-player in more than 20 years band history focuses on death metal much more than on its black half-brother. The guitar work avoids technical gimmicks, the dude at the six strings offers a relatively low-tuned, massive approach. The guitars are mostly like a tank that rolls over everything that stands in its way. “End of Catastrophe” does not lack brutality, but the profound morbidity that the Swedish role models create with great ease does not show up here. A few synthesizer sounds appear, for example in “Suffer from Hallucination”, but they do not generate an eerie atmosphere. The pretty dull sound and the growling of the lead singer underline the reign of death metal on this album, even though the vocalist performs no overly extreme kind of singing. Nevertheless, his very deep voice seems to be borrowed from a more or less typical death metal album – and unfortunately this statement implies that he delivers a pretty monotonous performance.

I already mentioned “Suffer from Hallucination” and I do it again, because I want to warn you. Despite its titles, the lyrics are not in English. Okay, this is no big deal. I just wondered why I do not understand a single word of the snarling guy behind the mic. Of higher relevance is the class of the musical offering. Songs like “Bethel Bleed” seem to be influenced by the classics that were bundled on albums like “Leprosy”. In particular the guitar work is very similar and marginally “progressive” elements show up as well (we know that Chuck – R.I.P. – also was not immune against these components). All in all, there are no songs that drive the album into the ground, but real jewels are conspicuous by their absence as well. Nothing keeps sticking in the ear, not only due to the linguistic barrier. The songs do not lack substance, but sometimes a clear direction is missing (parts of “Nosferatu” sound like an improvisation on stage and that’s a pity in view of some real strong sections the piece houses).

Maybe it is no coincidence that the Japanese trio only released one album in all its years of existence. The song-writing skills leave room for optimization. The same goes for the pretty flat and relatively emotionless production. It creates pressure, it even features the bass guitar and avoids major flaws, but that’s not enough to push the album on a higher level. And so “End of catastrophe” is doomed to failure, at least to a certain extent. The dudes from Japan show passion and determination, all songs are acceptable (or better) and I have no doubts concerning their metallic integrity. But either they have no outstanding ideas or they were not able to bundle them effectively. Death metal freaks should check out this work and maybe they start with the fast-paced “Lost Dimension”, although it is well hidden on the ninth position of the track list. For dudes like me who prefer the insanity, the creepiness and atmosphere of black metal, “End of Catastrophe” is not more than a secondary supplement of the collection.

With the first riffs you get a feeling that this is classic black metal. European black metal, maybe in the vein of Dark Funeral. Then it becomes clear that something is going wrong. Like the musicians try to stay within the limits of orthodoxy, but cannot withstand long. Well, it's not exactly black/death metal, as the band article says. Even though most of the riffs sound like typical black metal ones (for example, one riff from "Stained with Deepred" almost duplicates one from "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"), Basilisk's music has a lot influences from technical thrash metal too, sometimes you can even draw a parallel with Sadus. By the way, the album layout is more suited for a thrash metal band with social theme: it is designed in shrilly green color — variations on a theme of environmental pollution, I suppose.

Basilisk practices frequent and sudden changes of tempo. And style. For example, a lyrical insertion with a guitar fingering interrupts a relentless clatter of blast beat (songs "Suffer from Hallucination", "Bethel Bleed") — ok, it's within the black metal genre. But it's another thing when the musicians go off at a tangent often: jump from gloomy black metal riffs to thrash metal fervor (this fervor is felt mostly in "Bethel Bleed") and so on. It's like they say, "Guys, let's not go to the Dark Side." And the bass player is the most zealous of all: often there is a feeling that he wants to play with Yngwie Malmsteen but not in some black metal band — with his very technical play he completely destroys the monotonous atmosphere, proper to sombre black metal. In the last song "Black Storm" he really relieve his feelings. Well, at least he's not using slap and pop.

Black metal laws definitely overpower thrash metal ones on "End of Catastrophe" on only one point: there's not a lot of guitar solos on the album. Of course, this is not evidence that the guitarist has a poor technique. In the song "Nosferatu", with his solo he lets Yngwie Malmsteen (well, this name is used for the sake of contrast only) know, that he also knows how. Yes, the solos here are not typical for black metal. While in the ninth song "Lost Dimension", solo corresponds more or less to the declared genre of black/death metal.

Perhaps alone the vocalist remains faithful to the Dark Side throughout the entire album. Hard and sharp vocals, pretty typical for the genre. Except that he sings in Japanese — that gives special originality to his vocals. And, yes, even short intros ("Sign of Baptism" and "Fathomless Depth Crimson Dawn") perfectly correspond to the canons of black metal.

Anyway, it's a very interesting work. It should be recognized, even if you prefer classic black metal. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about Basilisk: none of the links are valid. Maybe the band no longer exists.