The Great Metal Debate podcast is back with the debut self-titled album from Catalyst Crime.
Catalyst Crime describe themselves as cinematic symphonic metal; however, I’m not a huge fan of the ‘cinematic’ descriptor, as I’m not clear on what that word is trying to communicate. Maybe epic metal, orchestral metal, even soundscape metal, but the term cinematic is literally about the visual scope, so it’s a head scratcher for me.
I digress. Catalyst Crime has assembled an impressive group of musicians for the recording of this album composed of vocalist Zoe Marie Federoff formerly of Insatia, Jonah Weingarten from Pyramaze on keys, drummer Gerit Lamm of Xandria, guitarists Christopher Zoupa and Kaelen Sarakinis, as well as bassist Matt Federoff. The project is produced by Alex Krull of Leaves’ Eyes and the underrated death metal band Atrocity.
The album begins with a lengthy instrumental/orchestral intro track, and which segues into the first proper song “Projection Of My Mind.” Sandwhiched between a soft intro and outro the band delivers plenty of snappy power metal vibe on this one. Plenty of color and tempo here giving the listener a real feel for what is to come.
The second track, and first single off the album, is “Condemn Me To Chaos”. While I would nit-pick with some elements of this song, the melody line is so incredibly strong as to overwhelm any shortcomings that might be present. Very memorable and ear-wormy, but not in a lame, pop-sensibility way. You‘ll definitely find yourself singing along to this one!
Catalyst Crime’s brand of symphonic metal is very heavy on keyboards, much more so than the background orchestration, and includes even some key lead breaks of which I am a huge fan. More of this metal bands, please! I’m also a fan of Zoe Marie Federoff’s vocals, which I was familiar with from her previous band Insatia. She has her own unique sound that admittedly may take some listeners a while to acclimate to. There‘s a touch of dissonant pitch to her voice that is different but strangely compelling. In addition to an array of clean classical and rock singing styles she employs, Zoe forrays into harsh vocals on a number of songs, at times evincing almost a black metal shriek.
Moving in no real order through the rest of the tracklist, “Congitive Dissonance“ has a spooky, Tim-Burtonesque feel (and okay - I realize here maybe there is something to the cinematic metal tag) as well as a beautiful trade-off between the complementary male and female vocals. Toward the album end “Not Even Once“ is definitely a winning track with moderate pacing and a bit different sound a vocal delivery. I could see this one being even better live than on record.
There‘s plenty of good tracks and I‘m definitely not going to do them all justice here. “Break Even” is a solid, uptempo song featuring an epic chorus and really cool guitar riffs. As or more aggressive is “Without Anesthesia” - perhaps my favorite track on the entire album. The chorus presents a cacophony of sounds; it’s kinda sonically cluttered and maybe not even that well-composed, but perhaps the imperfection makes it beautiful to me. I loved it.
There’s just one real ballad in the mix - “Chasing the Ghost” - which I found enthralling with a beautiful interplay between the guitar and piano. The song “Twice Upon A Time” is also somewhat ballad-ish, having a slower tempo but also really well developed building of sound and contrast between the instruments.
The debut self-titled album from Catalyst Crime is available from October 22 from Massacre Records in CD Digipak as well as digital formats.