Catafalc - Pain Performance

The Estonian band, Catafalc has a new full length called STILL SUFFERING on TRES-GORE RECORDS, but their self-released demo PAIN PERFORMANCE came out in 2004. And in 2007 it is re-released by Vrykoblast Production with a bonus track. The band has developed severely and has built up their production value quite a lot. They use a lot of guitars in their sound, the drums are loud and powerful but the guitar is emphasized in their mixes. I feel like I am hearing on the demo a real metal band in the way metal bands are supposed to play, loud shredding guitars. The demo is not brutal death, it is more death metal categorically. The band has created something heavy but plays what it knows. In other words, when I hear the songs on the demo, I think of metal, I do not think of other images. Nothing filmic or atmospheric comes to mind. I just hear the guitar being played and I hear the other rhythm elements built perfectly into that sound as a metal band. Part of this criticism is due to the total cleanness of the recordings, but part of it is due to something that I can’t quite articulate. Their newer stuff is more creative but in this demo, Catafalc plays metal that is too perfectly metal.

1. Masturbate with gun
2. Small world
3. Progressive surgery
4. Blessed with pain
5. Death in deathrow
6. I come, blood on my hands
7. Even evil can cry
8. Broken bone9. Impotent scene (bonus track 2001)
10. Halve (bonus track 2006)
Vrykoblast Productions
Reviewer: twansibon
Feb 26, 2009

Share this: