- SlugMag.com Review of "Beethoven On
Speed" & "Worship Me Or Die!" CDs
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- By Bryer Wharton, SlugMag.com
The Great Kat
Beethoven on Speed
Roadrunner/Metal Mind
Street: 10.08
The Great Kat = Beethoven gone metal
The classically trained Great Kat’s goal to take her passion for classical music and
turn it into something more modern was achieved and then some with her second album,
Beethoven on Speed. This, quite honestly, is one of the coolest thrash records I’ve
ever heard. Kat can shred it up with the best of any thrash guitarist out there, hands
down. Like her debut, the music is supremely fast. It isn’t just speed that makes
this record amazing; it’s also how Kat composed the classical works and made them fit
into metal note for note. The album has songs taken from Beethoven’s symphonies as
well as Paganini, along with other original material. Kat’s version of “Flight
of the Bumblebee” was actually submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records
Pestilence for the world’s fastest guitar-playing. “Funeral March” is
Kat’s rendition of a piano sonata by Chopin turned guitar. “Sex &
Violins” actually is not a guitar song; the first portion is Kat playing the acoustic
violin, and the second is her playing an electric violin. The variety and technicality of
the whole album is just astounding, truly amazing. –Bryer Wharton
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- The Great Kat
Worship Me or Die!
Roadrunner/Metal Mind
Street: 10.08
The Great Kat = the fastest female guitarist ever!
The story of The Great Kat is an astounding one; her real name, Katherine Thomas, was
trained classically, earning a full scholarship to the Julliard School in New York at the
age of 15. Somehow she turned her attention away from classical music to thrash metal.
Worship Me or Die! is her first album, originally released in 1987. The guitar-playing is
downright amazing, full of technicality and faster than a speeding bullet. A female even
in the late 80s playing thrash metal was something pretty much unheard of, but it even
took more guts and strength for this femme fatal to use lyrics telling people to well,
worship her or die, or “Kat Rules!,” or my personal favorite, “Kat
possessed your body and your soul, now you shall obey me and be my slave!” The lyrics
may be slightly juvenile, but at that time, what thrash metal lyrics weren’t? The
whole package shows Kat’s initiation into the thrash-metal genre and provides only an
inkling of what was to come. This record is a must-own for any self-proclaimed thrasher.
–Bryer Wharton
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