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The Great Kat
Extreme Guitar Shred DVD
Review by O.M.O.M.
I like my metal over the top; hell, Manowar is one of my favorite bands. The reasons most people give for hating them are the exact reasons I love ‘em. Make my metal heavy on the cheese please; then mix it with fast guitars, bombastic lyrics and an over-the-top delivery given with a straight face that a professional wrestler would kill to duplicate. With all the subtlety of a chainsaw, The Great Kat has unleashed Extreme Guitar Shred upon humanity.
For those of you unfamiliar with The Great Kat, she was born Katherine Thomas, a child prodigy who was accepted at the age of fifteen to Juilliard to study classical violin. After playing Carnegie Hall and touring the world, Katherine decided classical music was dead and began combining speed metal with classical music. The Great Kat has created her own genre, Speed/Classical, by transcribing classical scores to a speed metal onslaught.
“So is Kat fast or is it just a wall of noise?” people ask. Oh yeah, she’s fast; think Yngwie Malmsteen on crank, sped up to 45 rpms. Surprisingly, it works like a charm, Kat knows her stuff and runs it wide open through six videos contained on the DVD. It seems The Great Kat has one setting: all on, all the time. Which is both a blessing and curse on this disc.
“Zapateado” starts things off with a patriotic slant, Kat moshing and playing full-on in front of an American flag while some guy dressed as a minuteman stands straight faced behind her. God Bless America, I thought I was watching an 80’s WWF Sergeant Slaughter intro for a sec (that’s a good thing, by the way). Kat switches gears from patriotism to S&M in “Torture Chamber,” “Castration” and “Dominatrix”. It reminded me of a bachelor party I once attended that went horribly awry (sorry about that, Dennis, I thought they were regular strippers…). “Live In Chicago” shows a short collection of clips from a rare live Kat appearance then “War” wraps things up with blistering leads over a chorus of “Kill…Kill…” Bonus features include a photo gallery and Shred FAQ’s.
Video cuts come as fast as the guitar work which is where the problem lies. The videos themselves are mini-plays set to Kat’s remarkable shredding but images flash by so quickly that by the end of the DVD your head is spinning like a Russian ice skater. Slow down the video edits, expand the live portion from a few minutes to an entire show and throw in some in-the-studio footage of Kat flying through some frenzied fretwork and you just might have something that would replace my classic big-time wrasslin’ videos.
Now, can we work on a Great Kat/Manowar double bill?