Andrew Danso

Katanga, guilty as charged, are a borrowing act. Borrowing in the sense that they’ve roamed across the goth rock genre, and simply lifted the best parts of said populous acts, pieced these sections side by side, and released “Moonchild” with different artsy track names. Yep, that’s cynical, but nowhere near as cynical as releasing an entire album built on rebooting several franchises in order to sell a couple of CD’s. No doubt, you’ll get this same review next month.

The outcome is obvious: German band does Ramstein, Manson, and Fear Factory, sells a few CD’s and plans the sequel. The worst truth about “Moonchild” is that since Katanga have stuck so rigidly with the source material, it's actually an excellent goth rock record. It has an edge, an industrial swagger, and the mandatory Type O Negative similarities throughout its length, that give these German headbangers a sense of false premise, and copycat exploitation. Don’t expose a goth-rock virgin to Katanga’s second release, they’d instantly fall in love, and that would be the worst crime Katanga could commit… putting copyright aside.

5/10 Powerplay issue #129