Musick Brings Injuries

Katalepsy back in the day were recognized as a slam band before just shifting their sound to some standard BDM after this release. Musick Brings Injuries is honestly one of my favorite slam releases of all time despite the band's shift in sound later on and the fact that it has gems of songs buried in so much filler. I'll get onto speaking that in a little bit, but the songs themselves are actually very well-structured with brutalizing harsh riffs in between monuments of blast beats, absolutely ridiculous guttural vocals and outstanding production. Those slams too, some of the catchiest you can make them out songs that were generally played at tempos as fast as these.

While the EP itself isn't amazing, I have to get the elephant out of the room here. All the killer with so much filler is really what disappoints me. What exactly happened here? I'm assuming one of four things: these guys were either really lazy songwriters, didn't have enough money to spend on studio time, didn't have enough songwriting motivation (writer's block) or didn't have enough time in their daily lives to actually sit down and write material for thing this. What I'm really trying to say here is just 3 out of the 7 songs are original songs written exclusively for this release. Let me break this down: The first 3 tracks are new material, 2 are cover songs and 2 are like these weird low-fi demo songs that they did with an entirely different vocalist to boot.

The baggage is out; three songs out of the 4 filler tracks and here you have this release in a nutshell.

While this isn't really seen as a problem while in the mindset of putting quality over quantity, it's just kind of annoying with that thought in mind when you're looking at Katalepsy in disappointment since this EP was really the only solid thing they had out with music that strictly focused on playing slams with sickening tremolo and blasting parts in between. Not even the two demo tracks are really that impressive and the low-fi production coupled with the fact that two entirely different guitar tones are played on the first three songs put in comparison to these makes the whole thing sound slightly awkward. Musick Brings Injuries sometimes feels like a compilation or a mixtape rather than an actual qualified release as a result of this.

While many of the songs carry standard slam formula while injecting a healthy amount of real riffage to keep the oldschool DM fans happy, it only leaves you wanting more in the end result. I mean let's be honest, this thing opens up with "Gialo" which is a straight banger and before you know it, "Rots of Fuck" comes on featuring its insanely heavy distorted sound and clever riffs which is then followed by the absolutely sickening "Rots of Fuck" which the slammiest serving this release has to offer... and right when that third track ends, well what do ya know? That's all folks! The release then tries to compensate the disc space of the CD with a next couple of tracks that are taken up by cover songs and old demos. Yikes. The demo tracks aren't even that bad, but like I said before. It's just so awkward keeping them on a release like this.

Now to talk about the cover songs, yeah. They're not really great either. One song they cover is "Symphony of Destruction" by Megadeth (titled as "S.O.D." on this release for some odd reason) is medicore at best. The song doesn't even much sound like its original counterpart at that with the lyrics are understandable enough to follow along with in rhythm to the Dave Mustaine tune. But as much as I love when bands cover other songs that aren't theirs and bring their own sound to the table while doing so, this cover strays far too away from the original for me to even consider it. There's also a cover by Mortician as well. I've never listened to Mortician nor been bothered to even hear the original song they were covering of on here, so for that I give no opinion on that song. But listening to their cover, I can admit it wasn't as bad as the "Symphony of Destruction" cover.

Katalepsy sure had a sweet but REALLY short slam heyday before completing ditching the slams altogether. I really would have loved to hear more tracks in the same family as "Gialo" and "Rots of Fuck", but unfortunately these heavy hitter Russians had a different lineup and sound to attend to soon after this record's release it seemed like. Worth the listen and worth the buy if you're a diehard slam collector. This release is definitely a gem under the slam category, but in extreme metal collectively... just go for the download or look it up on YouTube. Certainly worth the listen but all the filler surrounding three hot tracks just sort of spoils its overall potential value as a noteworthy release. While this EP may be one of my favorites in slam, believe me when I say it is exclusively because of the first three tracks.

Katalepsy's Musick Brings Injuries initially presents a huge, heavy death metal sound stage wherein live the various critters of the swamp (boars, toads and crickets). The music is aggressive and strange slamming death metal, that lurches and has seizures, and for the first two cuts, it is quite engaging. But the amazing thing about this "album"—something no reviewers I've read seem to notice or care about—is that this "album" quickly veers into novelty terrain after the first three songs. Track four is a nonsensical Mortician cover, and then tracks five and six are both dismal rehearsal-caliber demo tracks with terrible, terrible sound and a really inferior vocal approach. After track three, which is decent, this thing just falls off a cliff in terms of quality.

Here’s a loud request to bands like Katalepsy: Please DO NOT include demo level tracks as part of your finished album. Make these inferior recordings “bonus tracks” or put them online or on a split or in a stopgap compilation, but please, don’t put awful recordings alongside polished stuff and call the sum “An Album.”

In total, Musick Brings Injuries is two good songs, a sort of interesting one, a bad cover, two awful demos and a weird, sort of interesting reconstruction of Megadeth's Symphonies of Destruction. It is a short EP that should have been a single was unfortunately padded out to (almost) full length with inferior material. But the good stuff is good. “Gialo” is truly top notch slamming death metal as is Sluggish Cranial Grinding. I’d like a full album or EP of stuff like that. A real album.

"On Katalepsy’s website, they claim to do U.S. brutal death metal, but from Russia. For those of you who don’t exactly know the style of U.S. brutal death metal, look at bands like Devourment, Lividity, Disgorge, and basically every other band that’s going to be at the Central Illinois Metal Festival. All of those bands have a few things in common:

1. They love blastbeats and normally has very cool drumming
2. There is a lot of groovy riffs
3. And the most distinguishable trait of U.S. brutal death metal, the guttural and frog/pig-like vocals

There’s normally a lot of hate from the metal community about bands like these, trying to make the case that they’re nothing but guttural noise and there’s really no flow to the music. Well, those morons need to get fucked, because if that’s what they think it is then they haven’t listened to proper U.S. brutal death metal. Granted, there are those bands that can’t do it worth a shit and need to die, but most of the ones I’ve heard do the style justice, and Katalepsy does it justice greatly.

When I first popped in “Musick Brings Injuries”, I was very curious as to what I should expect, and as soon as “Gialo” started, I was blasted out of my chair and pinned up against the wall by slow chugging guitar riffs, blastbeats and one of the best growls I’ve ever heard. I was nearly being ripped in half by the “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOO ROR BLG TU MUR ROS”, or whatever the fuck the lyrics are. Regardless, right after that that initial explosion of gore, I was incredibly pumped to hear the rest of the album.

I began to think to myself, “Sweet fucking Christ, for U.S. style brutal death metal, these guys really take the cake.” Fuck, I don’t know of any U.S. brutal death metal band that has entertained me this much in 7 tracks (yes, 7), let alone the usual 10 to 12 these bands normally produce for a full-length. There are so many good qualities about this album, and I’ll tell you them all.

I like to throw the word “groove” around, don’t I? Yes, I use it liberally and I will sure as fuck be plastering it all over this review. I might as well get that word tattooed on my ass. Anyway, the riffs go through a great range of slow chugga-chugga, to mid-paced bludgeoning action to being run over with a steamroller possessed by Satan. Every single note is special in its own way, never diverging from the onslaught of brutality and keeping it fast and strong. What’s even better about this album? It’s their fucking FIRST FULL-LENGTH EVER!

What else is great about this album? Well, the song structures are fucking fantastic. None of the songs sound exactly the same, unlike Defeated Sanity’s album, Psalms Of The Moribund. Each is a new adventure, and I love that kind of shit. Where you’re always expecting one thing, and then another thing comes around a completely different corner and kicks your ass. That’s how I feel when I’m listening to “Musick Brings Injuries”.

Songs like “Gialo”, “Consuming The Abyss”, “Rots Of Fuck” and “Sluggish Cranial Grinding” are very entertaining, but what really got me were the two cover songs on this album, “Rabid”, originally by U.S. cheese-masters, Mortician, and “Symphony Of Destruction”, originally by a band fronted by a redheaded moron, Megadeth! Will Rahmer of Mortician would gladly masturbate with glass to Katalepsy’s cover, and Dave Mustaine would complain because this band made “Symphony Of Destruction” way better than he and his fuck-buddies ever could. “Rabid” actually sounds a lot alike to its counter-part, but “Symphony Of Destruction” threw me for a loop. The song sounds absolutely nothing like the original. I’ve tried so hard to match up where everything goes in both songs, and for the life of me, I can’t do it. Katalepsy might as well just claim “Symphony Of Destruction” as an original song of theirs, because I’m sure they just changed all the instrumentals and just kept the lyrics.

Overall, I have not been this excited for anything out of Russia… ever. To me, Katalepsy’s first full-length is nothing short of a successful slab of brutal U.S. brutal death metal that would make just about everybody in the United States jealous of their musical talent. Fuck, I can’t wait until Katalepsy records another full-length so I can sodomize myself with it."

Originally written for Global Domination