"Zapateado" Music Video Review in Maelstrom Magazine

By Christraper, Maelstrom Magazine

10++++++ off the scales/10 Christraper

GREAT KAT, THE - Zapateado Violin/Guitar Shredding & Patriotic Glory!! - Cassette - greatkat.com - 2004

review by: Christraper

(Editor’s warning: this is an intense review bordering on the frighteningly obnoxious. But it IS a review about The Great Kat... so it’s fitting.)

THE GREAT KAT!!! For you WORTHLESS PEONS that don't already know, is the former Katherine Thomas: a child violin prodigy who trained with elite musicians of her generation at the esteemed Juilliard conservatory in New York City. Upon graduating from Juilliard with Honors, winning various awards for her violin playing and debuting as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Ms. Thomas, as the story goes, came across a Judas Priest video and had a revelation that classical music was "DEAD," and that she would singlehandedly become "the next Beethoven" by taking classical music into the realm of modern popular music. "I realized...I HAVE TO METALLIZE classical music, by mixing it with METAL!!!"

Hence was born the megalomaniacal, fang baring, castrating, dominatrixing, leather bikini wielding, WORSHIP-ME-OR-DIE persona of THE GREAT KAT!!! (capitals and exclamation points aways

implied if not shown), recently declared one of the ten fastest guitar shredders of all time by GuitarOne magazine and the scariest, speediest female guitar shredder O.A.T. (That’s "of all time" – ed.) by SPIN magazine.

She's a self-declared goddess AND the closest thing us mortals have to an actual super hero, it seems. Spiderman was bit by a spider, THE GREAT KAT was bitten by Judas Priest and OZZY.

Around since the 80's, she released speed-metal versions of Beethoven's "Flight of the Bumblebee," Vivaldi's Four Seasons and an 11-minute musical "response" to the events of Sept 11, 2001 called Wagner's War.

What we have here are two vidocassettes. One, Guitar Shredder from Hell, is a compilation of videos and a live document. The other, Zapateado, is a single promo video of a track from Wagner's War. Whether or not The Great Kat’s guitar shredding is truly the fastest or whether her compositions rate with the masters of western music is not a topic that will be broached in this writing. What can be said about Kat-music is that it is an ONSLAUGHT of sound. There is so much screaming and instrumentation going on that it is difficult to take in exactly what is going on in a single listening.

It doesn't matter whether The Great Kat lives up to her press hype, however, The Great Kat's imagination is so total that you will be transported into her Kat-universe by it's sheer force. See The Great Kat play shred / classical guitar with blood covered fingers! See her castrate her enemies and call them FAG! See her incessantly headbang and switch to violin! See The Great Kat in concert surrounded by fat, bowing roadies with t-shirts on that say "KAT SLAVE"! See The Great Kat don fatigues and scream amidst quickly cut images of 9-11 and the holocaust while a CCN style ticker tape runs under her that says, "KILL! KILL! KILL!" And finally, see The Great Kat don a red white and blue bikini, headband and war paint and proceed to thrash her way through Sarasate's "Zapateado" in tribute to America!!! See The Great Kat in all of her over-the-top glory and submit to Kat-Slavery.

Can't recommend this shit HIGHLY ENOUGH!!! (10++++++ off the scales/10)