Hymns of Dissension

The times are difficult for "princes"... Bands like Katagory know that they have to work hard to offer us quality albums, with only return a small step to the top (which they know that will probably never reach). That happened last year with "The Rising Anger", an excellent US prog/power metal album, that gained many positive review worldwide, increased perceptibly the band's fan base and, the most important, gave them the possibility to sign a contract with a european label (while the american with Nightmare Records still is in effect), for the further distribution of their work in our continent.

"Hymns Of Dissension", the fourth full length of the Utah based band, has been released some days ago through greek Burning Star and it aspires to lead Katagory V a little bit higher. It's too early to say if it will achieve the objective, but this you can conceive after the first careful listens, is that the band gave again its best to present us an appreciable musical proposal, which accomplishes to be different from all the previous.

Do you remember the lyric US prog/power, with influences from Fates Warning (especially "No Exit" era) and early Queensryche and even bands like Mystic Force, Lethal and sometimes Helstar, that Katagory V played so far? The Americans play in the same "pitch", with the difference that this time they focus at the power side of their music, managing to write more catchy stuff for the mainstream listener (something that didn't happened earlier). After the opener "Listen To You, Listen To Me", a typical Katagory V song, the speed gragually increases track by track, with climax the stormy "Apologetic Heart"! Dynamic and inspired riffs, catchy but not simple melodies and beautiful guitar leads, ?eep the listener at vigilance.

The speed decreases later, with "Kings of Valley" keeping still high the quality level (this and "Lies And Illusions" with the unbelievable bass lines are my favourite songs of the whole album) and afterwards follow some experimantations, with the growls at "Forlorn Child" and the acoustic ballad "Can You Hear Them". The european edition contains two bonus tracks, different from the american one. The first has a rather unexpected lyrical content for Katagory V ("Anthem Of The Underground", that praises the heavy metal way of life) and a new version of "Evil Princess", from the debut album "Present Day", which sounds more mature and dynamic than the original.

Unfortunately, the production is again poor to support sufficiently the Katagory V effort. Lynn Allers (vocals) is the man who is wronged the most, although his performance is sometimes so passionate, that can make you forget the problem of the sound. On the contrary, the guitars sound much stronger and that helps us to enjoy the excellent job Curtis Morell and Mark Hanson have done. The two guitarists are stealing the show, without this meaning that bassist, Dustin Mitchell (I already mentioned "Lies And Illusions") and drummer, Matt Suiter fall short in any way.

I am sure that many fans expected something more progressive from our American friends, but if you ask me, "Hymns Of Dissension" left me with the best flavour. I liked the turn to the more accesible US power sound, as I liked the abundance of the inspired themes, that keep undiminished the interest of the listener from the start to the finish (although I feel that there is a very slight decrease of quality as the record progresses). Somewhat inferior to their previous offering, but still excellent album.