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This band has been through many line-up changes, and after 14 years and over 10 albums they were in a situation where they had to decide, What are we going to do now? The answer comes on the new record from Catamenia, the album where they go from melodic black metal into a new genre that could be called power black metal, because their way to deal with the situation was to take full advantage of their new singer Juha-Matti Perttunen's special harsh voice, a voice that sounds like he has just eaten a lot of salt and shaking his head in agony, but make no mistake, his vocal power is enormous and allow him to sing at full speed in his own harsh and growling way.
The album is called The Rewritten Chapters and consist of some of the best songs from their whole career, it's not a kind Greatest Hits, because they have done exactly what the title tells: rewritten the songs so they fit the new style with power metal. And the result is amazing, 15 songs all dominated by Perttunen's power voice and the genuine musicality of the band. Blackmension is the hard metal song where your head starts a serious head banging in balance with Juha-Matti Perttunen and his voice that simply has to explored to get the drift of what he is doing. Alive..Cold..Dead is next in the metal line, the full force line where the creative songwriting makes a huge success with this power metal song. Cavalcade is not only a superb rhythm, it's also very elegant guitars, great balanced and still with power enough to freeze the seas forever. My Bloodstained Path goes in a different direction with progressive power metal and good creative ideas to make a new version of this song. Eskhata is another one of their great songs which has found a new life, melodic powerful singing from Perttunen, and his voice makes once again the big difference. Lost In Bitterness has genius quality, glimpse in the eye and the natural hardness that fits Catamenia very well. As the last song comes a total surprise that knocks you over, a cover version of the Bon Jovi hit: Born To Be My Baby. Totally blown away is the radio friendly impression that the original song had, and scraped down by sandpaper a new song comes to life, Born To Be My Baby, rewritten by Catamenia. Funny and solid crazy metal which has the fantastic ability to catch the crowd with their no nonsense attitude. Catamenia's new album The Rewritten Chapters is old wine on new bottles, but the idea to make this career move is probably the best and brightest thing they have done.
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