(Heavy, Power, Progressive) Katagory V - Дискография , FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Formed in early 1999, Katagory V was founded by bassist Dustin Mitchell, guitarist Curtis Morell and drummer Matt Suiter after meeting at a local rock club in Salt Lake City, Utah. Near the end of 1999 they would be joined by guitarist Ryan Taylor and vocalist Lynn Allers, and begin writing songs for their debut album Present Day, which would be self-released by the band in 2001.

Lynn Allers - vocals
Curtis Morrell - guitar
Ryan Taylor - guitar
Dustin Mitchell - bass
Matt Suiter - drums

Katagory V would be invited to perform at the world ProgPower USA IV festival as a showcase band in 2003, sharing the stage with Prymary and Stride. Their second album, A New Breed of Rebellion was due for release at this time, but would be held back several months and not see an official release until January 2004 through Metal Ages Records. Cover art for the album would be supplied by German artist Rainer Kalwitz. Trevor Asire would make the decision to part ways with the band for unrelated personal matters in January 2004, and would be replaced by Marc Hanson.

A New Breed of Rebellion would be known among the bands fans as a misunderstood classic, as it was often criticized in the media as being thin in production, far too technical and less song oriented compared their debut album, Present Day. In an attempt to redeem themselves amongst the media and some of their fans, Katagory V would make the decision to not promote the album with any live performances in 2004 and spend a majority of that year writing and rehearsing material for the follow-up to A New Breed of Rebellion.

Lynn Allers - vocals
Trevor Asire - guitar
Curtis Morrell - guitar
Dustin Mitchell - bass
Matt Suiter - drums

Katagory V finished up the recording process of The Rising Anger in the spring of 2005, and bounced back with several live performances throughout the year, including and opening slot for Metal Church, an appearance at J. J. Kelly’s for the Chicago Powerfest with Imagika, Tad Morose and Morgana Lefay, and the Monsters of Metal show in Salt Lake City, Utah with Helstar, Agent Steel and Avengers of Blood. This particular show would also have a special appearance by Leatherwolf guitarist Geoff Gayer, who joined Katagory V on stage to perform the Leatherwolf song ‘The Calling’ and featured Ronny Munroe of Metal Church as the announcer for the event.

At the beginning of 2006, Bassist Dustin Mitchell would be called upon to fill in on bass for legendary New York metal band Riot at a show in Salt Lake City, due to original bassist Pete Perez having suffered from an accident that left him unable to perform at this show. A few months later, the band would officially sign with Nightmare Records and release their 3rd album The Rising Anger. Cover artwork for the album would once again be handled by Rainer Kalwitz. This album would see Katagory V return to a more straight-ahead metal approach in their song writing, gaining several high ranking reviews and bring their name into the forefront of many new fans, while regaining the respect amongst many older fans that felt alienated by the previous album.

Lynn Allers - vocals
Curtis Morrell - guitars
Mark Hanson - guitars
Dustin Mitchell - bass
Matt Suiter - drums

[pre]EAC extraction logfile from 16. January 2010, 9:35 for CD
Kategory V / Hymns Of Dissension

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The times are difficult for "princes"... Bands like Katagory know that they have to work hard to offer us quality albums, with only return a small step to the top (which they know that will probably never reach). That happened last year with "The Rising Anger", an excellent US prog/power metal album, that gained many positive review worldwide, increased perceptibly the band's fan base and, the most important, gave them the possibility to sign a contract with a european label (while the american with Nightmare Records still is in effect), for the further distribution of their work in our continent.

"Hymns Of Dissension", the fourth full length of the Utah based band, has been released some days ago through greek Burning Star and it aspires to lead Katagory V a little bit higher. It's too early to say if it will achieve the objective, but this you can conceive after the first careful listens, is that the band gave again its best to present us an appreciable musical proposal, which accomplishes to be different from all the previous.

Do you remember the lyric US prog/power, with influences from Fates Warning (especially "No Exit" era) and early Queensryche and even bands like Mystic Force, Lethal and sometimes Helstar, that Katagory V played so far? The Americans play in the same "pitch", with the difference that this time they focus at the power side of their music, managing to write more catchy stuff for the mainstream listener (something that didn't happened earlier). After the opener "Listen To You, Listen To Me", a typical Katagory V song, the speed gragually increases track by track, with climax the stormy "Apologetic Heart"! Dynamic and inspired riffs, catchy but not simple melodies and beautiful guitar leads, ?eep the listener at vigilance.

The speed decreases later, with "Kings of Valley" keeping still high the quality level (this and "Lies And Illusions" with the unbelievable bass lines are my favourite songs of the whole album) and afterwards follow some experimantations, with the growls at "Forlorn Child" and the acoustic ballad "Can You Hear Them". The european edition contains two bonus tracks, different from the american one. The first has a rather unexpected lyrical content for Katagory V ("Anthem Of The Underground", that praises the heavy metal way of life) and a new version of "Evil Princess", from the debut album "Present Day", which sounds more mature and dynamic than the original.

Unfortunately, the production is again poor to support sufficiently the Katagory V effort. Lynn Allers (vocals) is the man who is wronged the most, although his performance is sometimes so passionate, that can make you forget the problem of the sound. On the contrary, the guitars sound much stronger and that helps us to enjoy the excellent job Curtis Morell and Mark Hanson have done. The two guitarists are stealing the show, without this meaning that bassist, Dustin Mitchell (I already mentioned "Lies And Illusions") and drummer, Matt Suiter fall short in any way.

I am sure that many fans expected something more progressive from our American friends, but if you ask me, "Hymns Of Dissension" left me with the best flavour. I liked the turn to the more accesible US power sound, as I liked the abundance of the inspired themes, that keep undiminished the interest of the listener from the start to the finish (although I feel that there is a very slight decrease of quality as the record progresses). Somewhat inferior to their previous offering, but still excellent album.
Taken from metal-archives.

Dustin Mitchell - Bass
Marc Hanson - Guitars
Matt Suiter - Drums
Curtis Morrell - Guitars
Lynn Allers - Vocals