In stark contrast to the last few metal reviews I’ve done, Castrator is violently, admirably to the point. I’ll admit to not following the band very much, but always keeping them in my periphery as a cool up-and-comer on Dark Descent Records, whose signees continues to enthrall and/or repulse me and whose cosign is always a mark of quality and worth at least a listen if not full-blown fanaticism. After listening to Coronation of the Grotesque, the band’s second LP, I see that I have been missing out.
I won’t rehash, but you may have seen me say something to the effect of me having a tough relationship with more straightforward death metal in the last few years. It takes a lot for me to get invested in a band, almost always needing a progressive, technical, thrashy, or blackened edge to perk my ears up. Thanks to remarkable writing and dragging their individual performance pedigrees into the light as seasoned musicians, it’s no wonder I’m enjoying the hell out of this album.
You could throw a dart (or a knife) at any song, play it, and find it backstroking through oceans of good melodies and gripping transitions as they careen through abject chaos and horror. Though the lyrics can be hard to decipher through Clarissa Badini’s savage affectation, Bandcamp spoils a few of the topics like the murder of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iranian police forces, eunuchization (I’d be disappointed if this weren’t the case), and Mexican scumbag child rapist Naasón Joaquín García (big-time content warning if you look up details of his case). While death metal is no stranger to fantastic violence and deviancy, Castrator have a lot more skin in the game when it comes to man-made horrors as a band of women living in and moving through a world that’s so frequently hostile and abusive to them, and that’s to say nothing of metal’s historical patriarchy and flippant approach to misogyny. That there name is Castrator is no mistake or chosen simply because of its invocation of violence – it, along with the chosen central themes of (in)justice that aren’t just exaggerated allegories to real life, is a statement and a much needed one at that. The album’s name is quite fitting, this indeed is a Coronation of the Grotesque.
You can certainly divorce the music from that aspect, but if you choose to, I’d argue you’re exactly the kind of person who the music is written for and should pay attention. I wouldn’t personally call Castrator a political band or anything, but their marriage of these elements with ripping death metal feel much more astute than your average band in the genre, purposed and empowering even in a primal, table turning way. “Mortem Opeterie” especially is a song that finds its groove – literally and metaphorically – quickly and doesn’t relent for three minutes. “Blood Bind’s Curse” has some effective old-school Metallica-type riffing where you can practically feel the pick jolting the guitar strings when they ring through your speakers.
Honestly, the mixture of weight and speed reminds me a bit of what Netherlands’ Collision was capable of doling out at their wildest. Though billed as a grindcore band, they were unabashedly thrifting some of death metal’s clothes with their later work and it all amounted to a bloodstained bludgeon of a time, something that Castrator also perform with great pride like with “Discordant Rumination” which is OSDM to the core, slow and low toward the end to really bake in the brutality. To top it all off, an Exodus cover of “Metal Command” has Castrator showing love to a thrash GOAT by ripping it so well that I had to question if it was an original song for a few.
And at the end of Coronation of the Grotesque, we’re left with a band that, despite paying homage to sounds and modalities that others have also honed in the past, stays true to themselves and unique enough to warrant a listen or two… or three. At no point was I questioning where the meat was, or to what end Castrator were heading with a well-trod sound. I just had fun, and isn’t that part of what’s suppose to make death metal so cool and alluring to freak-ass music fans like us? This is how I felt listening to Cannibal Corpse back when I discovered them with The Wretched Spawn, but elevated with a real message beyond the gore and depravity. 17-year-old David came out to play with this one, but 36-year-old David appreciates it more than I probably could at that age. Either way, all of me had a good-ass time with this one.
Band photo by Ashley Taylor
