Lovecraftian felines
-- Dangerous Times for the Dead --
15/01/2021
Stijn Daneels
Album genres:
| ■ | heavy metal |
Album artists:
| ■ | Bjørn Ciggaar | Vocals |
| ■ | Thijs Bouwman | Guitar |
| ■ | Dave Pilon | Guitar |
| ■ | Gerrit Procée | Bass, backing vocals |
| ■ | Jeroen Vermeer | Drums |
Review
written by Stijn "Metal Shredder" Daneels.
[METAL SHREDDER REPORTING]
One band
that we’ve been keeping a close eye on during these past 6 months is the Dutch
heavy metal act Dangerous Times For The Dead. Over this period the band has
released plenty of varied and excellent singles, one of those was the beautiful
“Storm The Castle” (read our review: http://belgianmetalshredder.be/reviews/257).
In addition, we had an awesome interview with bassist Gerrit last year (read it
here: http://belgianmetalshredder.be/interviews/148).
And now the band kicks off 2021 with yet another sweet single, “The Cats Of Ulthar!”
Let’s shred it out!
[SHREDDING BASICS]
“The Cats
of Ulthar” is the 6th single from the Dutch old-school metal act
Dangerous Times For The Dead and is once again released independently on all available
streaming channels. In the “Storm The Castle” review, I’ve described the band’s
sound as a blend of legendary classic metal acts like Iron Maiden, Dio, Judas
Priest and Black Sabbath and “The Cats Of Ulthar” is certainly no exception.
The song is
slow and menacing with a marching main beat, groovy, Black Sabbath like guitars
and howling, Danzig inspired vocals. It’s a very nice, straightforward tune
without any big surprises and Dangerous Times For The Dead’s usual catchiness in
its melodies and lyrics is still here. I do have mixed feelings, however, about
the meows in the song’s chorus. On the one hand, meowing in a song about cats
is cheesy as hell, but on the other hand, the way BjØrn does it is
quite catchy nonetheless.
Once again,
Dangerous Times For The Dead has made a tune that’s quite different compared to
their earlier released material. Older singles like “Power Management” and the
aforementioned “Storm The Castle” focused on speed and power metal while tunes
like Dangerous Times For The Dead’s eponymous single were thrash metal focused.
Maybe next time they can do something Motörhead inspired, with a ton of bass
and speed. Might be something fun to do.
[SHREDDING VISION]
The song’s
title and themes is based of the horror short story “The Cats Of Ulthar,”
written by the legendary H.P. Lovecraft. The story is about an old couple
living in the small fictional town of Ulthar and who kill all the local cats.
Things turn bad for the two old-timers however, when a group of wanderers come
into town and invoke a mysterious prayer. That prayer causes the remaining
feline population of Ulthar to attack, kill and devour the cat-killing couple
in their own house.
“The Cats
Of Ulthar” single describes the events of the short story from the perspective
of the same unnamed narrator as in said tale. The song itself doesn’t describe
the horrors of the story in much detail, but keeps things rather implicit and
therefore make the song’s atmosphere even more creepy.
[SHREDDER’S SCORECARD]
7,5 Lovecraftian
cats of 10. While not my favorite Dangerous Times For The Dead song, “The Cats
Of Ulthar” is a very enjoyable old-school metal song that we highly recommended
to all Danzig, Black Sabbath and H.P. Lovecraft lovers out there. Here’s the
single!