Currently, I’m in a phase of just loving metal. I’m fortunate to be going to a bunch of festivals this summer, and I thought I’d be a bit metalled-out by now, but in all honestly, the complete opposite is true. I can’t get enough of it. I’ve heard a lot of slam, power metal, death metal, stoner doom, nu metal, metalcore and so on – but hardly any black metal. Patristic’s new album, Catechesis, scratches that itch perfectly.
I wouldn’t normally describe anything as ‘true black metal’, due to the nasty connotations connected to this label, but somehow it seems fitting for Catechesis. I don’t mean true as in ‘trve’, but rather in the sense that everything about Catechesis feels genuinely, deeply, arcanely angry. The Italian ensemble have created an album that somehow perfectly captures a type of deep spiritual chaos – Patristic endeavour to reflect an era in time after the fall of the Roman Empire, but before the widespread Christian crusades.
There’s a thick, smothering darkness to Catechesis, present on every track, in every moment. The album contains six tracks, or rather, is divided into six sections, each one grim, dense, and incredibly beautiful. The end of “A Vinculis Soluta II” is one of my favourite sections of music I’ve heard this year (and I’ve been out seeing more live bands than ever before, so that is actually saying something). The drums pummel and throb, the guitars dancing around them beneath the sky of a high drone that could be a synth, or a guitar, or perhaps even a bowed string instrument. The harmony flexes and warps, taking unexpected twists and turns, ornamented by cymbal hits. It’s a complex section that somehow still manages to feel incredibly organic and fluid.
In general, Patristic have a knack for writing song endings. The last two minutes of “Catechesis II” are a force to be reckoned with – switching between angular rhythms and thick, repeated chords, before ending abruptly. Or, possibly my second-favourite section of the year, the end of “Catechesis IV”. I won’t give it away, but it’s excellent.
Every track on this album explores a new facet of Patristic’s sound. A real point of difference is the third track, “Catechesis I”, which is born from the ashes of “A Vinculis Soluta II”, starting with minimalistic, scrubbed low strings. There’s a sense of foreboding, a calm before the storm. Distorted guitars interrupt, like thunder claps, building gradually, until eventually they take over altogether. I love the interplay between buzzing tremolo picking and dissonant little melodies, the punctuation of the vocal phrases, and the way the track stomps and grinds and sidesteps in ways you could never predict. There are moments that are almost technical death metal, but still through the lens of fury and not technicality for the sake of technicality. The track ends in much the same way as it started, sparse, minimal, to give rise to the eerie beginnings of “Catechesis II”. In fact, the transitions between the different songs are so clever and subtle that the album really has to be regarded as one big track.
Unfortunately, there are no lyrics available for Catechesis – I’d love to sit down and read through them, and understand more clearly what Patristic want to express. I think I get the gist of it – there’s certainly a kind of pagan feeling to the album, and perhaps a defensiveness of these beliefs and practices, a bristling need to protect one’s personal faith from the imposition of Christian views. I could be way off base here, of course, but lines like ‘Are you ashamed of your thoughts?/Are you ashamed of your gods?’ certainly imply a spiritual unrest.
What I really love is when I learn something new through music. My previous review, about Mütterlein’s excellent new album, Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound, had me reading about an aspect of medical history I had no idea about, and through Catechesis, I’ve learned more about the Roman Empire and the Crusades. Music that is meant purely to express something personal, or to entertain, is of course a good time too – but music that has me questioning my knowledge of a certain topic, or that educates me, fascinates me.
Patristic have made an album that is not only deeply expressive, but also sounds amazing, is well written, and is a joy to listen to. I discover new things every time I listen to it (for example just as I was typing this review, I consciously realised that all sections of the “Catechesis I-IV” part of the album share a common motif), and it just never gets boring. Every moment brings something new and unexpected, and yet it’s never too much – everything about Catechesis is just right. I look forward to many more listens.
