Saw these guys play in Baltimore recently while touring for this Lp, and I was flattened by their immensity. It's been a couple of years since this Richmond-based trio released a new album, but they've returned with their best yet, a crushing, metallic assault that is mucho heavier than before. The Catalyst play a kind of sludgy, angular rock that automatically starts to evoke the sound of the Am Rep catalog, particularly the twisted psychosis of early Today Is The Day and the blunt-edged violence of Unsane. But where most bands who mine this particular sound tend to have a retro approach, The Catalyst crank it into something much more intense. The songs on Voyager swerve through bursts of fast, rocking heaviness and jagged, wiry riffing oozing with anxiety, and a bunch of the songs on the album unleash a sort of slowed-down thrash metal sound bent into awkward (but punishing) shapes that reminds me of Cali sludge heavies 16. This is way heavier than anything I ever remember hearing from these guys; while they've got that same souped-up noise-rock/grungy thrash vibe as their older records, this is ten times more brutal and forceful. Mathy guitar shred is splattered against crushing stop/start thrash grooves, and the band works all sorts of spacey, psychedelic flourishes, strange atmospheric leads, passages of ghostly ambience into this, even sinking into some morose doom-laden lumbering on "Septagon" that turns unexpectedly proggy. The megatherium swing of "Jupiter Brain" and bent hardcore spasms of "Breathers" and "Big Bend" lend variety, and the closing title track sprawls out into a seven minute anthem of lurching dissonance and arresting hooks, moody sung vocals over wrecked, waltzing noise rock for a punishing climax. Overall, The Catalyst offer up a unique fusion of Bleach-era Nirvana, Melvins, with the spacey, psych-tinged prog of Spaceboy and the weight and ferocity of thrash metal on Voyager, and it's one of 2012's best albums to stagger out of the noise/sludge rock end of the underground. Highly recommended.
Comes in a striking gatefold jacket and includes a digital download of the album.