Oddech wymarłych światów

Kat's third album is where they take many of their influences such as Venom, Metallica, and early Testament to mix them into their own, unique, toxic sonic brew. This is a crusty, satanic thrash album with raw production that only amplifies the crunch of the riffs that gallop forth here. This album is like a more refined Venom with more complex riffing and structures akin to Kat's American contemporaries, along with a singer who sounds mad and bewitched. This was the album that showed off the Polish underground's true strengths and would pave the way for the massive Polish death and black metal scenes. Oddech Wymarłych Swiatów is to Poland, what Black Metal and Ride the Lightning were to the English-speaking metal world.

Oddech Wymarłych Swiatów, meaning "The Breath of Dead Worlds" in its native Polish, is an album that's well-composed and uses its raw soviet-era production to its advantage to project an atmosphere of gloom over the album, which is very fast and thrashy. It kicks off with "Porwany Obledem" which makes use of choppy, galloping riffs and Roman Kostrzewski's manic chorus calls. It's got an energy like gearing up in your buggy to take on the destroyed, ominous wasteland in front of you. Other songs like "Spisz Jak Kamien", "Diabelski Dom", and "Bramy Zadz" all have solid riffing patterns and a nice dark crunch to them that just makes the thrash even heavier. The guitars are even dark on the soft Metallica-inspired acoustic parts of the album, making the atmosphere feel warm, yet barren and gloomy. This is only further accented by Kostrzewski, whose singing is melodic and manic at the same time, making it feel as though you are listening to the death throes of a man trapped in the insane, ruined lands that Kat describe in their songs. Every song sticks after a listen or two and there is nothing on here I'd consider filler. It's all raw, thrashy, hard-hitting, and engaging.

Knowing that this album would later influence some of Poland's giants only helps the reputation this has, which can stand tall on the music alone. Vader, Behemoth, and the Acid Drinkers consider this band to have influenced their sound and their entire national scene. With an album with as many iconic thrashing songs as this one, it's easy to see them having that kind of impact. This album blends Testament, Metallica, and Venom so evenly, and has the instrumental and songwriting strengths to compete alongside them. For a chilling and riff-charged thrash experience, look no further. These Polish gents have certainly done well.

After I heard Kat's debut album, 666, I knew that this band had something going for themselves. So I checked out this, their second album, and was a bit disappointed.

This is certainly thrash, but much better recorded and played with a high degree of professionalism. The riffs have more chug to them, more of a composed feel and a lot of bottom end. It's a bit like Testament, but much better than anything they released in later years, and certainly a lot fucking heavier, but way too controlled and compressed.

"Diabelski Dom Cz. 2" is a very strong song, following in the tradition of the other two parts of this song (found on the debut), and has some nice churning riffs and quality soloing from Piotr Luczak. "Glos z Ciemnoci" is slow, nearly balladesque, but not the emasculated numbers from the thrash bands turned glam. The ending of "Œpisz jak kamieñ" has a clever little clean outro with a tasteful solo, which works really well.

Roman's vocals are still great on here, but do suffer from being over produced. His clean vocals are pretty good though, but I would have preferred more evil sounding shit.

The best comparison I have is to Metallica's Master of Puppets. The riffs are stong, the playing is very competent, but in becoming better musicians, the harshness has been reduced quite a bit. This still feels evil, but perhaps the Diet Coke of evil. Kat's charm lay in making raw, evil thrash with a lot of speed, which is sadly absent here. Bottom line: strong, but not outstanding, especially alongside 666.