666

The earlier reviewers have claimed that this LP sounds like Darkthrone's "Under A Funeral Moon"... I've listened to this album about a thousand times and I have never met the similarity of these two albums. Katharsis plays raging, fast, aggressive, brutal, blaspheming black metal at it's finest. And yes, so does Darkthrone, but... It just doesn't sound like the same at all.

Though this LP was limited to very low quantities (no-one seems to know for sure how many copies were made, 100-666 copies, I presume), this act of purest black metal-art will be re-released later on in this year 2004, most likely on CD-format. For all BLACK METAL-fanatics. Including me. This review is written by listening the mp3-rip of the original LP. I feel sorry for doing that (with many other albums), but I can't really support a band who has sold out all their material before I got the money to buy it.

Tto the music... Every 6 tracks of this satanic, infernal output are pure mayhem. Well yes, the guitar riffs might sound a bit of UAFM, but that's about all the similarity you can get with Darkthrone.

Katharsis hasn't evolved technically a bit from their demo era, the overall sound is now just more clear, and I can actually listen to this album thorough, unlike the demos. Their guitars remind me like Ulver's "Nattens Madrigal", which sounded like a high-buzzing beehive. Do not misunderstand me, it's a good thing. The drums are blasting almost all the time, several hits are missed, but who cares, when the overall music sounds so delightful.

As with most of bm-bands, I couldn't figure out many words that the vocalist is screaming, but as I read the lyrics, it all made sense. Screams of agony. Nothing new under the (black) sun, though. Mediocre mid-pitched screams, with some insane stretches.

Bass isn't too audible (at least on my cheap speakers & headphones), so no comments about that.

Song structures... No variations here. Just pure fast blaspheming war and chaos. Some of the riffs are brilliant, and after you listen to this album, you definitely want to go out and kill people at random. This is violent.

This is death. This is 666. This is... KATHARSIS.