This release is part of a series of reissues of the legendary Polish band KAT made by Metal Mind Productions, which has put almost the entire band’s discography on the market again. Well, first of all, I have to be sincere and confess that the kind of music they do is not my cup of tea, although I do respect their importance for the Polish scene. So, in case I commit any injustice here, forgive me for not being exactly a huge fan of the kind of stuff they have been producing since the distant year of 1979 (!!).

Well, for a band with such a long history, it’s perfectly normal to have different phases and the present album, first released in 1997, is a notable example of the 90’s thrash metal. In fact, I have to praise them for not being worried about the trends, because at this point of the underground history most of the bands were doing something more extreme, like death or black metal, and they followed their path without giving importance to passing fancies. Since the beginning, what we hear is a kind of midtempo thrash metal, with lots of influences from Metallica (mainly the Master of Puppets era) and also some touches of Pantera, without that groovy parts which were common to Phil Anselmo’s band. Despite these influences, Kat doesn’t sound exclusively thrash, because they also bring lots of features from their traditional heavy metal past. Besides this, they present a loto f great ideas in terms of instrumental, adding some original keyboards, interesting acoustic passages and even some experimental elements, as we can listen to in the last track.

There some very cool passages, with heavy guitars and original vocals, cleaner than the average metal vocalists, but with a very strong approach. I think that their option for singing in their native language also helps to make their music stronger and full of feeling, a clear proof that Kat really lives for this kind of music. Personally, I like a lot when bands from non-English-speaking countries decide to sing in their proper tongue and not only for political reasons, but because this influences the music too and normally brings more personality to their work, and that’s exactly the case here.

In fact, after hearing the record for some times to write this review, I have to admit that, despite this is not my favorite kind of metal, this album is pretty good and shows a very professional band, with excellent musicians that really know how to deliver good metal to their fans. If Kat sounded a little bit strange at first, now I’m obliged to say that they deserve the respect they’ve got in Europe and the cult status the band has in Poland. They are pretty good, indeed, and if you like a type of open-minded metal music, with some calm parts, not much speed and great vocalizations, so you should listen to Kat. Congratulations for this piece of good metal, guys!

Cristiano Passos