Picture this: You are in an interview and someone is asking you “What do you love about music?” and borrowing Russell’s dialogue from Almost Famous, you reply “To begin with…Everything,” with a smile running down your face. There’s love, or rather, call it madness that I have for music, specifically as a listener. In the pursuit of exploring and staying updated on what’s happening with the ongoing scene, Catatonic, a metal band hailing from Shillong, was found to be part of my playlist as they released their debut EP Gardenia in March, this year.
As the title must have already given an idea, it definitely has drawn its inspiration from the botanical world, but no, Catatonic is not talking about the plant world, teaching you gardening, or holding a presentation on the flower Gardenia itself. Through the 5 tracks that their EP houses, Gardenia encapsulates different aspects of life. The metalcore band, through its heavy riffs, intense drumming, and raw vocals(special mention: the use of telephone voice effect)takes Gardenia, the flower, as a metaphor.
While this sounds pretty dreamy— to be letting listeners have an opportunity to ponder and imagine petals unfurling words about life, to a large extent, Gardenia doesn’t disappoint. But, I would say, it would have been better to have a linear approach, rather than a scattered one. In Bloom, the first track, the band is talking about how life can bring one down on their knees and suddenly, in Gardenia, the next track, the lyrics signalled starting something new and to forgive and forget, while Fragile as it followed was talking about death. This shift, as a listener, was making me confused. If I was reaching for the depths of despair, the next second, my mood struggled to keep pace with the momentum of the EP. It was a tiny challenge, personally.
However, this doesn’t raise a question about the potential of the band as they have already had their fair share of fun on the stage by opening for popular Indian metal bands like Godless and Gutslit in the past, but a different direction by the EP could have accentuated it further. Through Gardenia, the band claims to start a new era with a fresh sound and artistic direction while having a more melodic style in their songwriting along with maintaining the intensity of their earlier days. The influence of Converge, the American metalcore band, which is also one of Catatonic’s primary influences including Title Fight and At the Drive-In, could be greatly felt, even in terms of the album art which seemed to be inspired by their album The Dusk in Us, released in 2017.
Overall, Gardenia presents a lush garden of blooming metalcore yet leaves room for improvement and a listener can’t help but get greedy only because the band is promising and sounds adept. Out of the 5 tracks, Wither and Prowler stood out to me for its melodic riffs and if I am not hallucinating, I slightly got reminded of the typical Iron Maiden sound while listening to the former and Eyeless by Slipknot, the latter(the band-pass filter to be precise). For fans of metal, streaming is a fairer option than skipping and one can definitely look forward to what Catatonic will be putting on the table in the coming days.
