Once upon a time there was a death metal act from Montreal that was led by a grizzly bear on vocals with shredding riffs, explosive blasts, technicality, intensity, perfect song writing and an unparalleled dark atmosphere. This band was Kataklysm, though you wouldn’t guess it based on the band’s studio efforts over the past decade.

Yes, my friends, Kataklysm were, at one time, in the upper echelon of the underground death metal scene. Their demo and early EP recordings are favorites among old school death metal aficionados, but Kataklysm‘s debut full length offering, Sorcery, is by far their finest moment.

The Kataklysm of today and the Kataklysm of 1995 are two completely different beasts. The Kataklysm of the past 13 years has been a deathcore fueled soggy sack of shit, whereas the Kataklysm I know and love were a bulldozing death metal powerhouse, led by the most insane vocalist in the history of death metal; Sylvain Houde! Sylvain’s vocal delivery is unmatched by any vocalist past or present with deep guttural grizzly bear growls, high pitched banshee shrieks and pained wolf-in-a-snare snarls and an uncanny ability to know when to use which delivery most effectively.

Kataklysm‘s musical style was as varied as you can get, seamlessly fusing intense brutal death metal with catchy melodic death metal and powerful old school death metal. Guitarist Jean-François Dagenais and bassist Maurizio Iacono’s performance on this album is as close to perfection as is humanly possible as they shred and pluck their way through 46 minutes of the most intense and powerfully melodic death metal ever recorded! Not to be outdone, drummer Max Duhamel puts on a drumming clinic, effortlessly switching between hyper blast beats to slow-paced melody.

The songwriting on this album is fucking amazing! There isn’t a single track that isn’t awesome, with creative lyrics and an insane ability to change levels of intensity in a heartbeat. I really can’t emphasize enough just how awesome Sorcery truly is!

I’m always bewildered by people who talk about the greatness of 90s death metal without mentioning this disc. This album should be included in every death metal fans "essential" list, along side Suffocation‘s Pierced From Within, Gorguts‘ The Erosion of Sanity, Entombed‘s Left Hand Path, Carcass‘ Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious and Death‘s Human. If you don’t own it, get it and I guarantee you’ll be singing Sorcery’s praise and damning them for ever changing the band’s musical direction.

Review byTeufel