Band:	Cataclasite
Album:	Heavy Lies The Weight Of The World Upon Us
Style:	Drone, Post-rock, Funeral doom metal
Release date:	February 17, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Heavy Lies The Weight Of The World Upon Us

‘What’s the most obscure band you’ve ever heard?’ is a hard question to answer; anyone who’s been friends with musicians when growing up is doubtless going to have heard plenty of failed bedroom projects that reached the ears of at most 10 people. ‘What’s the most obscure band you’ve heard that’s worth recommending’ is arguably a more intriguing conundrum, and Cataclasite may well be a contender for my answer.

By rights, there is no reason for me to have ever discovered the album I’m currently reviewing. Cataclasite are seemingly impossible to find any record of online when searching, as even typing the band and album name into a search engine produces no results, not to mention they’re apparently not on social media or streaming platforms. The only record of their existence comes courtesy of Chaotic Man Music, a label ‘branch’ assisting with production, management and image consulting for music artists. They currently have two releases on their Bandcamp, and while I was listening to one of these two records as a potential Clandestine Cuts feature, my eye was drawn towards the artwork of the other album. Due to being a free download, there is no record of any purchases of Heavy Lies The Weight Of The World Upon Us, so I have no idea whether it has found any audience at all yet, but pressing play introduced me to a record far more accomplished than I expected based on its apparent absolute obscurity.

The album’s Bandcamp page features a blurb describing this single-song album as encapsulating the trials and tribulations faced upon the journey towards ultimately completing a challenging endeavour. There is no further information, so I cannot tell you anything about Cataclasite’s nationality, formation date or personnel. What I can do is describe the musical content of Heavy Lies The Weight Of The World Upon Us, a 42-minute odyssey that does capture the arduous yet euphoric nature it was seemingly aiming for. In terms of genres, the glacial pace and crawling distortion in its first half owe quite a bit to funeral doom, but it arguably spills over from doom into outright ambient/drone territory; however, I’m not sure the term ‘frone’ used to describe Monolithe’s Interlude Second on this site is quite applicable, at least if Monolithe’s EP is the standard by which such fusions are to be judged.

More than anything, while I’m not sure it can necessarily be categorized as post-rock or post-metal, the tones used during the song take my mind closest to the delicate, spacious soundscapes crafted by many such artists, particularly during the 2000s. I find my mind drifting towards the more minimalist moments and material on Cult Of Luna’s Salvation and Somewhere Along The Highway, and by extension The Moth Gatherer’s The Earth Is The Sky. On top of them, fans of A Swarm Of The Sun, Year Of No Light or This Will Destroy You’s dronier explorations might find something to embrace in Cataclasite’s release.

Heavy Lies The Weight... is an album that requires patience, and it doesn’t have any kind of explosion to reward the patience of those expecting it to build towards an eventual climax. The track lumbers slowly early on, with plodding funeral doom percussion (produced in an emphatic manner that really reverberates) moving along while delicately textured borderline ambient soundscapes fill the void. For the first half of the track, there is some degree of alternation between sustained clean chords and more distorted doom, although it is the drumming that delivers the bulk of the ‘heaviness’. Vocals, from what I can tell, are absent, although there are moments in which I thought I possibly heard some faint clean singing in the background.

The final of these alternations occurs around the halfway mark, and from that point onwards, the track effectively turns into a mélange of wistful post-rock layers that gradually fade away, ultimately ending on warm ambient synths that capture the spaciousness of the great, empty coastline depicted on the album cover. I feel that it’s safe to say that this album is by no means for everyone; those hoping for crushing heaviness will find it falls short, and those expecting it to evolve into something more substantial will find it a lot of wait with minimal payoff.

However, there’s something about this release that really appeals to me; perhaps it’s just due to the way it captures the contemplative vibe and atmosphere of Salvation by Cult Of Luna, but it’s tinged with this sorrowful beauty that I find really compelling to dwell in, even for a whole 40 minutes. I hope Cataclasite manage to be discovered by more people than just myself, as I imagine there are others that will feel like I do about this record.