Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Basilisk - End of Catastrophe (2013)

   Basilisk formed as a black/death metal band, and their so far one and only album might be controversial for those, who expect to hear something similar to Dissection or Necrophobic, or even war metal. The band offered an own solution how the two styles could be combined, and they did that by a pretty unusual perspective. 
   However, their music is definitely more relatable to the Northern styled black/death. Plenty of old school black metal references could be found on the album, and most of the riffs are evidently reflecting '90s Norwegian and Swedish black metal bands. This they combined with strongly thrash influenced death metal, and by picking these two ancient forms of both styles, they just did what Japanese bands used to do: by analyzing the selected subgenres to the core, they give importance to their essence. What makes "End of Catastrophe" harder to go into for black metal fans is the drastically reduced role of the atmosphere, that partly came from the modern sound and partly from the band's pretty technical approach. There are simply so many theme and tempo switches that couldn't allow any atmospheric effect to prevail, even if its role was preferred. The focus lies on intensity, and in this case on technical intensity, that piles up plenty of switches. At one hand this is a more modern tendency compared to ordinary black/death, and well, technical black metal didn't become a common thing for a reason. The technical intention came definitely by the influence of the mid and late '90s pathfinding death metal experiments. Despite the complex concept, it's pretty strictly taken, and theoretically nothing stands against this genuine approach. Only there are no examples or barely any examples to find for anything similar. By giving several listenings to the album, it becomes clear, that the band's solutions that might seem as a bond of paradoxes, aren't really counting as paradoxes. 
   This twisted mix of old school and modern directions is pretty extraordinary, and more recommended for the fans of technical and progressive death metal. 

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