There’s something that can be great about bands that have very few members. The route to what the artist’s interpretation can be easily portrayed. In this case, on the first album from THRONE OF KATARSIS, the band wants to make fairly standard black metal, just with really long songs. The songs themselves are mostly of the standard blast beat driven tremolo picked fare, with a few slower pieces, sometimes featuring acoustic guitars, or arpeggio picked cold, stark guitars. There’s even a moment or two with somewhat chorus like singing.
Unfortunately, “An Eternal Dark Horizon” can be a little overdrawn and aimless. The songs don’t ever come back to any familiar passages, which could work, but they rarely if ever feature a riff to catch and take hold. It’s a huge problem working with long songs. Since the material provided isn’t top notch or very diverse, the whole thing comes off as very self-indulgent. The band might like having the challenge of playing songs around 10 to 12 minutes, but as a listener it really drags on.
The production is actually a decent style raw production where everything is quite audible (even the bass that lacks, well, bass) but every now and then something pops up at a high volume that doesn’t belong there, like a static pop or a string screech. The drums sound as though they’ve been tuned very well, as the snare drum gives off a wonderful crack, although the other drums sound as though the recording process has rendered them a little soft.
It’s a nice try at making really long mid-paced to quick black metal songs, but the attempt falls short due to the amount of familiarity and lack of change-ups.
6/10
The Official Throne Of Katarsis Website
Throne Of Katarsis at Candlelight Records
