### Catamenia: Eternal winters prophecy

#### 08/07/04 || Statik Majik

So, this is probably black metal. And they’re from Finland. So am I. That’s a good start. Catamenia has wolves and snow on their booklet(s). Does that suite their music? I honestly don’t know. Or care. Now that we got that covered let’s move on with the album, shall we?

I was introduced to this band by their webmaster something like 3 years ago when he gave me three of their first albums for me to listen to. Fortunatelly I listened to “Eternal Winter’s Prophecy” first, because I was blown away immediatelly. The two first albums didn’t impress me that much. They were a ok, but nothing I would consider buying. Anyway, “Eternal Winters Prophecy” was also the first black metal album I really listened to. And I have to admit that after that I finally had the courage to give other black metal albums/bands a try too. Not such a bad decision, I might add. Hey, we all got to start somewhere, don’t we?

So, I won’t bother doing a track by track analysis for this release, I’ll try to summarize the feelings in few paragraphs instead.

Overall the album is fast and melodic (black) metal. There are slightly slower and heavier tunes as well as fast songs. No, again not even this could be categorized as fast as Dark Funeral, but you probably get my point. What’s also nice about the songs is that even in the fastest songs the tempo slows down every once in awhile, giving good contrast for the faster parts. Chorus in the “Blackmension” sounds so fucken good that everytime I hear it I get the urge to rewind back to it over and over again.

The keyboards are put into the songs rather well too, I might add. There are even few parts where the combination of vocals and keyboards make really nice atmosphere for the songs. During those few parts guitars are played slighty slower just before all hell breaks loose again.

And this is one of those releases that happen to have excellent ending track. I just hate albums where all the best tracks (usually two or three of them) are put in to the very beginning and the rest of the songs don’t sound that good anymore after all those killer tracks. Because, let’s face it, there aren’t that many albums where all the songs would be equally as good or interesting. There’s always better and not so good songs on the albums. Anyway, after spelling the obvious let’s get back on the track. Catamenia have managed to spread the killer tracks around the album, therefore keeping the listening experience as interesting as possible.

Highlights on this disc: “Gates of Anubis”, “Blackmension” and “In the Capricorn’s Cradle”.

7,5 /10

- Information
- Label: Massacre
- Website: www.catamenia.net
- Band
- Mika Tönning: vocals
- Riku Hopeakoski: lead guitars
- Ari Nissilä: rhythm guitars
- Timo Lehtinen: bass
- Heidi Riihinen: synths
- Sir Luttinen: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Gates of Anubis
- 02. Soror Mystica
- 03. Blackmension
- 04. Kindom of legions
- 05. Half Moons, Half Centuries
- 06. Forever Night
- 07. Dawn Of The Chosen World
- 08. Eternal Winter’s Prophecy
- 09. In The Void
- 10. The Darkening Sun
- 11. In The Capricorn’s Cradle