Review of the Album "Chaos Born" by Finnish Black Metal Band Catamenia

Finnish melodic black metal band Catamenia has impressed me and other fans in Europe with two VERY good albums in Winternight Tragedies and Location: COLD. Their 2003 album called Chaos Born is the last album to have original vocalist Mika Tonning. How good is this last album with Mika doing the vocals? I can tell you that the album is off to a solid start after the first song.

The song called Calm Before the Storm has a very good beginning and middle riff which speeds up and showcases the band’s talent. The song is about someone that is trying to bring light upon the world after a powerful storm which caused him to have hate inside of him.

The Fear’s Shadow starts with a bass line and it even has a style of riffing similar to Kalmah. It is remarkable that Kalmah would influence the music of Catamenia and both of these bands are incredible in their own ways. The riffing of Catamenia manages to be super catchy in most cases and this has been true whether the band had Mika Tonning or O.J. Mustonen as their vocalist. I also notice in the song itself that the bass line sounds like something in the old Nintendo Entertainment System era but there is no midi file sound which makes the sound real and authentic.

The song Mirrorized Thoughts has the drumming taps that we have heard from this band before and the song has vocals that are just a bit harsher than we have heard up to this point. The song called Lost in Bitterness is a song about someone who fails to see the bright side of life and they instead choose to see all the down sides or negative aspects of life. These kinds of people have very narrow minds as the song mentions. Even if these kinds of people think they are something, they are really not and they portray themselves as thin-skinned and weak. What is not weak is Catamenia’s music and their music is so good that it will dominate any American death metal band that is active today!

The Era is a short but very beautiful instrumental that has classical elements in it. This is something that Catamenia had not done before and it only shows their musical evolution. It is this kind of evolution that caused them to create even better songs in the years 2005 and 2006. The Fallen Angel Part 2 (The Rising) has riffing that is heavier and even classically influenced. I can notice that when the softer section kicks in. There is little that Catamenia can do wrong when it comes to riffing and this was especially true in 2003. Move over Children of Bodom, because you’ve got some serious competition! The album ends with the fast song called Hollow Out- Chaos Born. The last two lines of the song are accurate of how the soul can be. There is both darkness and light when it comes to the human psyche and soul. Overall, Chaos Born is a very good album even though it cannot match 2005’s Winternight Tragedies.