CATALEPTIC is a band hailing from Finland that has been around since 2003. They dub their style Triumphant Dark Doom Death Metal. Well, with such a statement, I didn't really know what to expect. Their scant output in 14 years of existence - that is, this new album is only their second LP - made me suspicious. It has been six years since their debut album "Strength Within", so I believed they must have been burning the midnight oil at the drawing board, planning to unleash something really special the world was yet to hear. Doom Metal? Well, it does sound kind of doomy -slow tempo, quite heavy riffs and all that. Dark? Hmmm... Comme ci comme ça. How about triumphant??? NOT AT ALL.

"Forward" consists of 4 long tracks stretched over nearly 54 minutes; the final track being more than 22(!) minutes long (or, I'd rather say 22 minutes OVERLONG)... Now, I know my Doom Metal. I'm an avid fan of the genre in all its forms, but I wasn't prepared for this quite abominable offering. This one is obviously a step back from their debut, which, though it wasn't a masterpiece, it did retain the dark atmosphere, and its somewhat rawer production gave it heaviness and flavor, a flavor that has been abandoned and wasn't carried forward to the new album.

To me, a primary make-or-break point in any album is the vocal performance, which is totally fumbled in "Forward." If loud roars that sound like a bellowing giant means "triumphant", then that's one domain where the band completely lays an egg (an ostrich one at that). The vocal delivery is one-dimensional and barely varies (try to imagine Rob Flynn on a Doom Metal and you'll get the idea), which has no room in Doom Metal. The other felony is that the Death Metal overtones in here are in the vein of Melodic Death Metal, and instead of crushing, earth-shattering sound I got slightly flimsy post-metal guitar sound with too much air. This is further aggravated by the unnecessarily long duration of the tracks and patchwork of boring riffs that do not amount to any clear statement. I hate to say it, but the overall experience made my ears bleed. There are too many elements here that do not combine properly, which causes this album to wander aimlessly.

In summary, this album is a senseless blob of sounds that will waste nearly a full hour of your time. Stay away.<