By Carl Begai
“When we released In The Arms Of Devastation in 2006 it changed a lot of things for Kataklysm,” says vocalist Maurizio Iacono as an intro to the band’s new slab of hellmetal, Waiting For The End To Come. “It was a big record for us. It was a very melodic record and that took the European market by storm. It was our biggest selling record, and after that we didn’t explore ourselves as musicians as much. I think we took the attitude that ‘This is Kataklysm, this is what we do and we do it well, so we’re going to continue doing that.’ Heaven’s Venom (2010) was a great record for me and I love it, but I think some people heard it and said ‘Yeah, but they’re not dangerous.’ It was the ‘but’ that bothered me. We had the songs, but I realized that people don’t just want the big songs, they want that element of danger.”
Which is why Kataklysm fans are now feasting on arguably the band’s most dangerous album in years. Iacono is humble discussing the achievement, but there’s no mistaking his pride in delivering more than what anyone was expecting at this stage of the game.
“This is the longest stretch we’ve had between albums. It doesn’t seem like it, but it is. It’s been three-and-a-half years going on four. It was one of those things where the record came out and we had time. We decided that we needed to come back with something different and more dangerous because we wanted to make a statement with this record. We didn’t want to come off as if we were coasting, we wanted to surprise people. I think that’s what we did with this record because we changed a lot of things. The production, the artwork… a lot of things are different.”
“It’s an all out attack. Everything that we like, we put it on this record. Kataklysm is a mix of a lot of different influences. Stephane (Barbe/bass) loves black metal, J-F (Dagenais/guitars) loves Iron Maiden, and I love more groove-oriented stuff like Pantera; if you mix all that you’ve got a very unique sound. If people don’t like this record maybe it’s time to think about retirement (laughs). It sounds modern, it sounds fresh, I don’t think there are any bands out there that sound like what we’re doing on this record.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: KATAKLYSM – Burning Your Soul: “People Want That Element Of Danger”