Review of the Album "Eskhata" by Finnish Melodic Metal Band "Catamenia"

Finnish melodic metal band Catamenia released many albums very quickly early in their career. Their 2002 album called Eskhata attracted me mainly because of the incredibly melodic song called Rain of Blood. The song begins with a group of men that seem to be running for their lives to avoid being ambushed. There is the sound of machine gun fire that can be heard. This is a dramatic kind of song that sets the tone for what is to be a song filled with pure awesomeness. In fact, the song is so awesome that you will want to keep on hitting that play button as soon as the song is done. I’ve done this many times and the song will keep fans hooked! The chorus of the song combined with the corresponding melody is what really provides the hooks to this song. This is one of the best songs written before the band would come up with Verikansa in 2005. If you listen closely enough, you will hear a sort of low grunting sound that last for a while. However, the first song in the album called Storm starts out very slowly and follows with a scream from Mika.

The next song called Flames is reminiscent of what the band Kalmah would do especially in their 2006 album called The Black Waltz where they use heavy growls in their vocals. In this song however, there is just a tiny showing of those growls. Sometimes we feel that we have allowed many years of our life to be wasted away as we continue to search for what the meaning of life is. The song’s lyrics are written in such a way that the song is hard to interpret.

Even though Catamenia’s lyrics can be dark, their music is of high quality! The song Vortex is about a person that is feeling that their life is empty. Their mind is being torn apart as the reality of death gets into their mind. Actually, the music of Catamenia may provide a rather calming moment to some of you that may need it. Even though Eskhata is an album that’s over 20 years old, it shows the awesomeness of Finnish metal.

I will say though that Catamenia has better lyrics than other black metal bands such as Mercyful Fate. There is a beautiful interlude in this song that is influenced by 1980’s era Iron Maiden. Then comes the piano playing instrumental called Karma. Karma has been very good to Catamenia which has been providing quality black metal since 1995 and making the lyrics tolerable for music fans.

Astral Tears is a song that tells of an environment and a place where as the sky darkens at night and the stars appear, there is nothing to fear and nothing to hurt us as we are lacking any pain. Time in My Hands seems to be a continuation of the last song at least musically but the guitar playing is pretty good even without the distortion. As we know that the time is in our hands, we have the power to shape our destiny and our future. We must make sure not to control the destiny of others. The last track called Eskhata is a song about the coming of the end of the world but let’s hope that we do not see that in our life time. Eskhata is a solid album but it may be slightly worse than 2003’s Chaos Born and that is a tough call because you really cannot go wrong with any of these early Catamenia albums!