Reviews von "in two minds" auf got-djent.com

Glass Moon Miracle:
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A bleak, charred, wasted soundscape opens German groove metallers Katatura's stomping debut, hollow spoken word joining harsh, textured noise and ghostly guitar atmospherics to set the tone for a generally menacing listen. The bestial march of 'Direction Of Death' and the more urgent, midpaced 'Unavoidable Delay' announce a greater presence and extremity, buzzsaw guitars, percussive bass and tightly syncopated drums providing a crushing backdrop for Andreas Glathe's savagely roared announcements of stagnancy and societal decay. Within the first three tracks, Katatura deliver a fearsome statement of intent before diving headfirst into the album proper.

The body of In Two Minds is hammering, heavy, and rhythmically devastating - but is perhaps too consistent in this delivery. In many ways, Katatura are returning the djent movement to its roots; the ultra-compressed production and nimble-fingered technical aspirations of many of their peers have been stripped away to something that truly recalls Meshuggah themselves during their slowest, most groove-intensive moments. But Katatura take things a step further when the leviathan heaviness is left behind. Amid the many face-smashing headbangers lurk pieces of bass or clean guitar work that create quite different effects, from almost jazzlike arrangements to sinister ambient passages that evoke subtle psychosis and mental disarray. This is largely accomplished through the band's rejection of traditional scalar structures in favour of exploring the atonal spectrum. This may sound ambitious, but it is managed quite tastefully, creating a less restricted, more thoughtful style of riff a la Blotted Science or perhaps Spastic Ink at their most weighty.

These aspects of the various compositions are sometimes denied enough space to shine, unfortunately, threatening to collapse under the weight of mammoth riff after mammoth riff. Heavier, arrhythmic parts are abundant enough to threaten to strangle the more restrained ideas on occasion. That said, if all one normally wants from a CD is something to smash one's face in, this is unquestionably a good record for the task (and offers plenty of food for thought besides).

Album highlights include the aforementioned 'Unavoidable Delay', the cerebrally inflected bass solo 'Allusion', the vicious, rolling 'Aegrotatio', and the ten-minute behemoth 'Katatura'. This last, eponymous track delivers a rousing, almost Nietzschean message that transcends nihilism and calls for freedom and defiance, all the while delivering the most chilling atmospheres and elephantine breakdowns in this entire demented journey.

Repetitive at times it may be, but In Two Minds knows how to break the monotony when it really needs to, and contains a wealth of deliciously brutal moments. This album is cutting, primal, and laced with an undeniable sense of groove; it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're into the harsher, heavier, more dissonant sides of music, this is a must-have.

Karimtarek1993:
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Hailing from Chemnitz, Katatura is a German metal band that was founded in just about the year 2006. The band comprises of five members, having totally different races and backgrounds (Hungary, Russia, Indonesia, Thailand, France and Germany!), which is quiet stunner about the band how these guys could actually get along and collaborate to form a band and consequently make music. However, as the CD booklet says, the members are Awinier Nurdin on drums, Djon on bass guitar, Andreas Glathe on vocals, Daniel Kiss and Anawin Chalomseema on guitars. I only know of Djon, who is a really nice guy.
Anyways, I got introduced to Katatura at and earlier time this fall, hearing updates about a debut album in progress and other stuff, and since I was kind of musically idle at that time, I thought of giving a shot to something new. They play some blend of down-tempo groove metal, djent and mathcore. Using unusual time signatures, prominent bass sound and distinctive polyrhythmic guitar, they make pieces that are best described as complicated. Some music that I’ve never been into, which sustains my point of listening to that album; trying something new.
“In Two Minds” is the offspring of almost four years of work, but it wasn’t until September 2009 that the band actually embarked into recording at the Liquid Aether Audio studio. Starting off with drums and ending with bass guitars that were eventually recorded in 2010.

The album starts off with an impressive intro that, at its first half, somehow conjures the images of underground crypts of black metal with the undistorted guitar playing that gives you shivers, evolving, however, to introduce some kind of intimidating clean vocals alongside the intermittent heavy guitar riffing accompanied with vintage long screams. This intro can easily ensure you that you’re about to hear an album that has effort put into it.

Comes next, the core of the album with a very impressive elemental diversity in the music. Meaning that, the track “Direction Of Death” for instance, starts with clean guitars then gives way to distorted guitars, drums and growls, another track “Ego” opens with a completely different approach; acoustic guitar, bass in the background and then comes the aggressive shouting with a very crafty entrance for intermittent guitars and eventually bass before getting into the core of the song, another track “Nothing Lasts Forever” opens in a very “djent” way with the break-downs..etc. That really sustains my point; there are some serious efforts exerted throughout this whole album, I mean that’s an album that really deserves kudos for the effort, no matter what do you think about the music or what does it have to do with your taste; the guys really did their best on this one, putting in consideration that it’s their debut.

The sixth track on the album “Allusion” is an interlude that comes in a really timely juncture on the album; it’s merely a bass solo that shows how skillful and creative my friend Djon is. What are also worth mentioning are Andreas Glathe’s vocals; he did a great job brutalizing the music with his aggressive grunts and growls coming right from the guts. Also the rest of the band did quiet a good job conducting the very complicated polyrhythmic guitar playing and the very groovy drumming that’s perfectly keeping up with the rhythm and maintaining the desired harmony.

Lyrics on “In Two Minds” fairly fit the music; they reflect rebellious thoughts and thoughts about anger, death and self-improvement.

Overall, Katatura is a promising German band that craftily merges djent and groove metal with mathcore. They’re devoted to what they do, hence the lucidity of their great efforts all over the album “In Two Minds”. So, if you’re a mathcore fan, like bands like Meshuggah or generally into groove metal, you should give Katatura’s “In Two Minds” a go, and if not, you should also do because it’s something new and you won’t lose anything So, in the end, in terms of mathcore and djent; “In Two Minds” is a very good piece of work that deserves commendation for the efforts that are put into it.

Highlights: The Thin End Of The Wedge, Allusion, Ego.

Clarity:
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The history of this multicultural band started in the year 2006 when its first two members, Dаniel and Awik began composing material for the forthcoming album. In the next three years Katatura had finally been completed and the guys fully concentrated on the recording process. After that was the mixing phase which was quite a long and exhaustive process. Due to some problems with the label, the musicians decided to leave "Build A Nation" for "STF Records", which would take over the mastering, the promotion and the distribution of the album.

You can see that releasing "In Two Minds" was a very long and tough work. However, it was worth trying and now we're able to hear the result. By the way, this was "e-recording" which means that the guys met on Myspace and communicated per e-mail or per telephone, and the first time they "physically" met, Djon had already recorded almost 100% of the album. So the album was recorded before the band members had seen each other live!

Following the musical style which they call "grooveshuggah", the fellows perform polyrhytmic metal in the groove vein, not having the pretention to play technically but playing rhythmically while letting some technical elements in. Consequently,monotonous, groovy riffs are often replaced by complex mathematically built guitar structures in the Meshuggah spirit. The tracks' tempo is often being changed, but in general slow, abrasive riffs prevail on the album and usually set the tone in each song. All this is supplemented with Andreas' distinctive growl that sometimes turns into a scream, adding some gloominess and an ominous atmosphere to the music.

At times one can hear short acoustic parts that effectively contrast with heavy guitar arpeggios. This is especially evident on the first instrumental track «The Thin End of the Wedge». In general, to mark out any of the compositions is a difficult task, because they all are equal enough.

In my opinion, one of the main shortcomings of "In Two Minds" is the pretty impacted guitar sound that slightly hinders from the full evaluation of the whole "mathematical" part of the album.

Quite an unconventional approach to composing may at first confuse the listener but when you hear this work more, you may find it very appealing.

In conclusion, if you're a fan of slow groove metal which is backed by polyrhythmic stuff and powerful vocals, then Katatura's new album is definitely for you!