I like threads like this and look forward to listening along together and sharing my thoughts. So are we all starting on the debut? How long are you leaving between albums for us all to listen and discuss?
Also, great write up to start off with dude. I mainly skimmed over it but will read more thoroughly later. I drew parallels to the formation of Enslaved, who have always been more black metal, and they are one of my favorite bands.I'd follow for either Coheed and Cambria or Enslaved, should you choose to do them at some point. A little more harsh vocals than I'd like, but I always enjoy random tracks from them so that might be the push I need to give them a closer listen.
Thanks to you and LithoJazzoSphere for taking the time to host this. I'd love to do one for Coheed and Cambria one day.
I like threads like this and look forward to listening along together and sharing my thoughts. So are we all starting on the debut? How long are you leaving between albums for us all to listen and discuss?
The discography tracker thread indicates to "give the forum about a week to listen to, digest, and discuss the album" so that works for me. If it ends up being a little longer here or there I think that's OK. And yes, starting with the debut, EPs optional. :)QuoteAlso, great write up to start off with dude. I mainly skimmed over it but will read more thoroughly later. I drew parallels to the formation of Enslaved, who have always been more black metal, and they are one of my favorite bands.I'd follow for either Coheed and Cambria or Enslaved, should you choose to do them at some point. A little more harsh vocals than I'd like, but I always enjoy random tracks from them so that might be the push I need to give them a closer listen.
Thanks to you and LithoJazzoSphere for taking the time to host this. I'd love to do one for Coheed and Cambria one day.
I will say the first several albums are pretty rough
OK just listened to Jhva Elohim Meth. These guys were SIXTEEN when they recorded this?! Yes, it is a little rough round the edges and could use a little polishing. I can tell you what I doing at 16, it did involve polishing of a sort :lol and it certainly won't be being talked about 30 years after the fact.
I was really surprised by this. Maybe it's just because I was aware of how young they were, but it sounds pretty great, production wise (I guess because of Dan Swano, how old was he at this point?) for a bands debut EP, at this time.
I loved the outro as well, something again that speaks of maturity beyond their years. The guitars have that eerie, echoey sound and I have zero problem with the vocals. It sounds of it's time, but it was an exciting time for metal and the branching off of sub genres. This is all part of the start of Scandinavian metal moving to the forefront of modern metal. They also really remind me of another band but can't quite put my finger on it.
I also consider myself a bit of a Metal music historian. I like to accumulate random knowledge about all things metal-history. Having said that, I have one correction to make about Jhva Elohim Meth. This demo was recorded in July of '92 and was subsequently "released" a short time after.
TAC might only be participating in this thread to prevent me from sending him more Katatonia in his next roulette,
So I will be following this thread, although I'm already a pretty big Katatonia fan. I do enjoy discography run throughs and what not.
I also consider myself a bit of a Metal music historian. I like to accumulate random knowledge about all things metal-history. Having said that, I have one correction to make about Jhva Elohim Meth. This demo was recorded in July of '92 and was subsequently "released" a short time after.
As a huge Katatonia fan, this is the only record I don't own of theirs. I'll look into it and consider if I want it or not.
For the uninitiated, I will say the first several albums are pretty rough, at least for me. Mainly has to do with Jonas finding his voice.
I've been planning on going through their discography again and doing more of a thorough listen. I'm very familiar with the more 'modern' albums (I guess some of these are quite old at this point) dating back to Viva Emptiness. The ones before that one I have heard maybe 2-3 times each but it was such a long time ago and I think I listened to many of them in the span of a week so memory is quite hazy and my feelings for the band has grown with mostly the newer stuff.
Just from memory I don't remember the first few being rough, if anything Brave Murder Day is probably still one of their strongest albums and I remember the debut and Discouraged Ones being pretty great too.
Rest assured, no one has been sent as much Katatonia as you. :)
TAC might only be participating in this thread to prevent me from sending him more Katatonia in his next roulette,
We're ALL participating in this thread to prevent you from sending more Katatonia in all of our next roulettes. ;D
So Lethean, I can't promise a listen tonight, but I will be posting my First Listen impressions of each album as we go.No Rush to do it all on the first night. :)
Jhva Elohim Meth (1991) - EP
Midwinter Gates (prologue) - Nice enough opening.
Without God - Musically, my first thought is that this reminds me of very early Fates Warning. Lots of interesting changes in the mid section. They do a nice job of building this up. A bit too mid tempo for me overall, but lots of great ideas, especially for being 16 y/o.
Palace of Frost First of all, Palace Of Frost is a cool fucking title. Love where it picked up a minute or so through. They abandoned it too quickly. Had a cool Slayer feel to it in that part. Not a bad song by any stretch.
The Northern Silence Some slapping bass in this song. Love the uptempo parts. This is my favorite song of the three, mostly due to the pace.
Crimson Tears (epilogue) Somebody shut the faucet off!
So yeah, if these are 16 y/o kids, this is a great ...demo? Recorded by Dan Swano. I know he's really popular, but I don't know what his status was at this time. It's a really decent recording, and they feel like they are children of their influences. These tracks are well put together.
We're off to a nice start, Lethean!
Puppies, when did you start listening to Katatonia? Was it at all during that time, or later?My first full dive into Katatonia happened shortly after I first discovered Opeth back in 2005. It was a short stretch going from Opeth to Dan Swano. Then I starting getting into everything Dan Swano related so naturally Katatonia came up fairly quickly (along with all his other projects). I picked up Brave Murder Day first because it had Mikael Akerfeldt on guest vocals and of course Dan Swano was involved. I loved it and then got all of the rest of their albums at the time. Everything from Dance of December Souls to Viva Emptiness. The Great Cold Distance was released shortly after that and I've been picking up each of their new albums as they've been released ever since.
but for now I just wanted to say how much I love this early-to-mid 90s period for metal and related subgenres. I've mentioned before how I truly started to pay attention to and collect music around 1992, and the journey was far from "linear", right away. Pretty quickly, I was falling in love with all kinds of metal, from prog to thrash, death to doom etc....there was so much interesting stuff going on in that period. Bands that were exploring a ton within their own genres. Always had a soft spot for melancholic sounding metal, whether it was more accessible "gothic metal" or more obscure death-doom. Some bands were sort of living at the intersection of these things - thinking Amorphis, Moonspell and, yes, Katatonia.
but even their beginnings were not "obvious" in terms of sound. A lot of it, I believe, had to do with the musical influences of Renske and Nystrom...there was a lot beside death and doom.
This is going a bit off-topic but - Tim, if you've never heard it, you should try Purgatory Afterglow by Edge of Sanity. For many years, that was his main band. That one, in particular, was such a cool record. Death metal at its core, for sure, but with influences ranging from Marillion to gothic rock. Also, if you want an all-encompassing example of Swano as a solo artist, try the debut album from Nightingale (The Breathing Shadow). He does everything himself there and it's an obscure mini-masterpiece.
I think my biggest trepidation is going to be the mid tempo of it all. Without God has a moment about 3/4 through where I feel it starting to soar and it's a great moment. I think if the songs build, then I'll be ok.
I think my biggest trepidation is going to be the mid tempo of it all. Without God has a moment about 3/4 through where I feel it starting to soar and it's a great moment. I think if the songs build, then I'll be ok.
I think you'll probably struggle with them, but I hope that you'll end up finding things you enjoy anyway. For me I wasn't super into them right away; I thought they were good/enjoyable but I definitely had the sense that I wanted them heavier. That changed for me and maybe there will be a track here and there that'll be an "in" for you and then the others will follow. Or not, but I'm happy you're joining us.
but for now I just wanted to say how much I love this early-to-mid 90s period for metal and related subgenres. I've mentioned before how I truly started to pay attention to and collect music around 1992, and the journey was far from "linear", right away. Pretty quickly, I was falling in love with all kinds of metal, from prog to thrash, death to doom etc....there was so much interesting stuff going on in that period. Bands that were exploring a ton within their own genres. Always had a soft spot for melancholic sounding metal, whether it was more accessible "gothic metal" or more obscure death-doom. Some bands were sort of living at the intersection of these things - thinking Amorphis, Moonspell and, yes, Katatonia.
Honestly the whole period of the 90s and even a bit beyond for some was like this, so many of my favorite artists are ones who had beginnings as death or gothic metal bands and then took that atmosphere even when they went far away from metal, Anathema, The Gathering, Autumn, many others. Mainstream artists rarely get the right feeling of melancholy like these artists do.
This is going a bit off-topic but - Tim, if you've never heard it, you should try Purgatory Afterglow by Edge of Sanity. For many years, that was his main band. That one, in particular, was such a cool record. Death metal at its core, for sure, but with influences ranging from Marillion to gothic rock. Also, if you want an all-encompassing example of Swano as a solo artist, try the debut album from Nightingale (The Breathing Shadow). He does everything himself there and it's an obscure mini-masterpiece.
I suppose they're worth a shot, but I'd sooner recommend a mid-era Nightingale album, maybe Alive Again, way more 80s proggy hard rock and guitar soloing there. The Breathing Shadow is a lot to take in if you aren't a Sisters of Mercy fan. Moontower is also done solely by him, and sounds like if Rush had tried their hand at death metal. And then Crimson is the ultimate Edge of Sanity album for prog fans.
We're time-traveling ahead almost three decades, but I'm curious how he'd react to tracks like "Behind the Blood" and "Untrodden" from City Burials. More Priest riffs in the former and some magnificent soloing in both. Here, TAC, give this a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQaN2elJ-dQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQaN2elJ-dQ)
*Great job so far to Lethean. I wasn't quite sure how much you were going to do for the first post, and you definitely threw down the gauntlet and raised the bar. But Katatonia is a sublime band, so they definitely deserve it.
*Lethean posted a bit earlier than I was expecting (but I love the initiative!), so I had to do a quick listen and throw some thoughts together. If I think of anything else I'll post later, or just save it as I work on the writeup for the next two albums. I'm a little bit intimidated now, I definitely need to up my game. I love competition though, a healthy amount of it brings out a little extra from everyone, like those roulettes!
*There are also some rehearsal demos floating around from '91 and '92. The sound recording is so abysmal that they're pretty unlistenable to me though. Luke, if you say you're not an audiophile and don't notice albums not sounding right, I think these might break you. But they did do a rerecording of some of them last year, and they're now far more listenable, and prove that Jonas can still do harsh vocals on occasion if needed.And somehow I completely missed this. Mentioning the rehearsal demos are some of the things I left out, but I had no idea they rerecorded them. Did they announce this somewhere and I missed it?
*This is the only album on which Jonas does harsh vocals the whole time. Recording and touring this album blew his voice out and he gave it up other than rare exceptions like Ayreon's 01011001 and a few other one-off recent B-sides and such.
*Jonas' drumming has a unique vibe here. In particular, his double bass playing is pretty loose. Remember, this is before the days of digital studios, Beat Detective and such, so you were limited to doing multiple takes, or having someone who was a wizard with splicing tapes, so unevenness and some flubs add a character that often isn't present in modern, pristinely-recorded albums.He's also said that he never owned his own real kit, so he was only able to practice on an actual at the youth club, etc, and says his playing was never really that strong.
*Also, Lethean and I co-hosting this is turning out even better than I hoped, since it appears some of our preferences and knowledge sets are complementary. not being as familiar with doom metal, which has become arguably my favorite metal subgenre in the past decade. I'm spread too thin in general to have any true deep expertise, but the atmospheric varieties of doom are a particular favorite, and this definitely hits that vibe at times.To be honest I'm not that knowledgeable about black or death metal either, or "metal lore" such as the WAR compilations. I've gotten into some harsh vocals over time, but not at all until 2010 and I only really know about what I've read in relation to bands I like, like Katatonia and Arcturus.
*Also mentioned, Diabolical Masquerade is also a fantastic side project (with Anders and Dan) to check out for more black metal focus with some really great albums exploring different facets of it.Just chiming in to say that I really like Death's Design. I need to listen more to the others but that one drew me in for repeat listens by how totally wacky it is.
I kind of love how we're talking about Dan as if he was an official member of the band already. I knew he was involved with their earlier stuff as well, but generally I've thought more about him being the drummer on a later album…I don't think he was ever an official member. I'll have to see if I can find it but I remember an interview where Anders was pretty clear that he just did session drums for them
*Overall, this experience has already been enjoyable and worthwhile, even for my least favorite album from them. Honestly, listening to this more carefully to recall things to talk about, I've noticed little details I don't remember hearing before, and this is probably the most I've liked this album yet. It's always in the shadow of their even better later albums, but I'm understanding increasingly why for a portion of their fans and metal fans in general this is one of the most singular and iconic albums ever recorded.
This is great stuff from both of you, Lethean and Litho!
We've hasd some back and forth on Katatonia in other threads already, so you already know they are a big favorite of mine too...
I'll try and post more specific comments on the albums as we go along, but for now I just wanted to say how much I love this early-to-mid 90s period for metal and related subgenres. I've mentioned before how I truly started to pay attention to and collect music around 1992, and the journey was far from "linear", right away. Pretty quickly, I was falling in love with all kinds of metal, from prog to thrash, death to doom etc....there was so much interesting stuff going on in that period. Bands that were exploring a ton within their own genres. Always had a soft spot for melancholic sounding metal, whether it was more accessible "gothic metal" or more obscure death-doom. Some bands were sort of living at the intersection of these things - thinking Amorphis, Moonspell and, yes, Katatonia.
My first ever Katatonia experience was with Brave Murder Day, which this thread will soon get to, I'm sure. The band would go on to become quite the different beast in time, but even their beginnings were not "obvious" in terms of sound. A lot of it, I believe, had to do with the musical influences of Renske and Nystrom...there was a lot beside death and doom. I know, for example, that they are big fans of this pop/rock Swedish band, Kent, which started out in the early 90s too, and if you've listened to some of their records, you'll hear subtle hints of that in Katatonia's songwriting.
Puppies, when did you start listening to Katatonia? Was it at all during that time, or later?My first full dive into Katatonia happened shortly after I first discovered Opeth back in 2005. It was a short stretch going from Opeth to Dan Swano. Then I starting getting into everything Dan Swano related so naturally Katatonia came up fairly quickly (along with all his other projects). I picked up Brave Murder Day first because it had Mikael Akerfeldt on guest vocals and of course Dan Swano was involved. I loved it and then got all of the rest of their albums at the time. Everything from Dance of December Souls to Viva Emptiness. The Great Cold Distance was released shortly after that and I've been picking up each of their new albums as they've been released ever since.
Also, if you want an all-encompassing example of Swano as a solo artist, try the debut album from Nightingale (The Breathing Shadow). He does everything himself there and it's an obscure mini-masterpiece.
As a huge Katatonia fan, this is the only record I don't own of theirs. I'll look into it and consider if I want it or not.
For the uninitiated, I will say the first several albums are pretty rough, at least for me. Mainly has to do with Jonas finding his voice.I've been planning on going through their discography again and doing more of a thorough listen. I'm very familiar with the more 'modern' albums (I guess some of these are quite old at this point) dating back to Viva Emptiness. The ones before that one I have heard maybe 2-3 times each but it was such a long time ago and I think I listened to many of them in the span of a week so memory is quite hazy and my feelings for the band has grown with mostly the newer stuff.
Just from memory I don't remember the first few being rough, if anything Brave Murder Day is probably still one of their strongest albums and I remember the debut and Discouraged Ones being pretty great too.
I think the good professor is referring to Jonas' vocals, maybe especially on the early clean vocal albums. And he has a good point. It's not a bad idea to give a little warning for those who might only be familiar with more modern Katatonia that he sounds different. His vocals improving are definitely a part of why I like the "newer" ones better than the early ones, but I really appreciate getting to hear that evolution.
Absolutely, yes. 100% agree. And The Gathering is another example of certain "unlikely" influences (shoegaze, in this case) finding their way early on to create something unique (I always thought no other band was able to replicate Mandylion's sound...)
Agreed on his solo album-proper, Moontower. I, too, always saw it as a Rush/Marillion/Death Metal combo
I left out some things because I was worried about making my post too long even. But I don't anticipate all of them being that long; the origins part added a lot.
And somehow I completely missed this. Mentioning the rehearsal demos are some of the things I left out, but I had no idea they rerecorded them. Did they announce this somewhere and I missed it?
He does it also on the first October Tide album, and he did live harsh vocals for the next tour but I'll save that for your post. Do you know if he ever sang and drummed at the same time live? I couldn't find much but was under the impression that Anders did most of the singing for the very few shows they did prior to Brave Murder Day.
I don't think he was ever an official member. I'll have to see if I can find it but I remember an interview where Anders was pretty clear that he just did session drums for them
I was not expecting that but this is totally awesome. :)
You guys may not have been expecting this, but I'm more pumped for this, after hearing the first 2 EPs/album, than I was after only being aware of some of their later albums.
I know Katatonia were never black metal but they formed around that time when the genres weren't so clearly defined. They clearly mixed in all those extreme metal elements, and even wore corpse paint for a time.Yes, and Anders was really into black metal and I think it seeped into what they were doing at the time.
I feel I'll appreciate where Katatonia go, knowing now where they've come from.+1 to the bold, and I will be spinning them again too throughout the week.
I'm honestly surprised by how much I liked these first records, and will certainly be spinning again before we move onto the next record.
Really great thread and I will be following and commenting.
Dance of December Souls - I don't own this album and have rarely heard it. I did give it a listen though just now and there is some really good stuff to be found but it does sound like a different band. The very doom sound and vocals actually reminds be a lot of Behemoth. Nick mentioned the youthful tendencies and I do agree. It does feel like some young guys just going for it and trying to add as much 'cool stuff' as they can into each song.
One of the most fascinating things about Katatonia is their musical journey as a band. When you listen to this album, can you even imagine that one day the same band would write/perform a song like Old Heart Falls (for example).
Two, this band is so Opeth adjacent that it baffles me that I'm not more familiar with their output. I've nearly been listening to Opeth for 20 years, and even though I have actually been aware of Katatonia for most of that time, I just never listened, weird. While I'm talking Opeth, I may end up liking this more than Orchid (which I can draw parallels to). Opeth are one of my all time favourites, and I find Orchid one of their weakest.
I won't, but I really want to listen to the next few albums.
Two, this band is so Opeth adjacent that it baffles me that I'm not more familiar with their output. I've nearly been listening to Opeth for 20 years, and even though I have actually been aware of Katatonia for most of that time, I just never listened, weird. While I'm talking Opeth, I may end up liking this more than Orchid (which I can draw parallels to). Opeth are one of my all time favourites, and I find Orchid one of their weakest.
Well, to be fair, despite the connection through early collaborations and friendship, musically speaking the only Opeth-adjacent output is their very early stuff (and even that, I think, is gloomier and more straightforward than what Opeth was doing on Orchid or even Morningrise). And both bands changed their sound pretty soon after that.
...well, actually, the song Idle Blood from the Night is the New Day album (many, many years later) is very Opeth-sounding, but we are talking mellow Opeth here, so a different beast altogether...I won't, but I really want to listen to the next few albums.
Why not? :)
Well, to be fair, despite the connection through early collaborations and friendship, musically speaking the only Opeth-adjacent output is their very early stuff (and even that, I think, is gloomier and more straightforward than what Opeth was doing on Orchid or even Morningrise). And both bands changed their sound pretty soon after that.
...well, actually, the song Idle Blood from the Night is the New Day album (many, many years later) is very Opeth-sounding, but we are talking mellow Opeth here, so a different beast altogether...
Why not? :)
I mean, I want to listen to them right now, but I won't, I'll wait and listen along with everyone else in this thread.
Somehow I'm not surprised at all, only perhaps surprised it took you (and LithoJazzoSphere) this long to do it :lol
Fire is hot
Water is wet
Lethean creates Katatonia Discography Thread
Is that all your first impressions TAC?
Not at all. I just wasn't sure if you'd listened to it once or a few times.Is that all your first impressions TAC?
Yes, those are my first listen impressions. Was I too brief? :lol
That prompts the story of how I got into Katatonia in the first place. I really don't remember how I heard about them, but I started accumulating some tracks from file sharing programs at the time, probably Kazaa or WinMX. That included "Murder" and "Day" from Brave Murder Day, "For My Demons" and "Right Into the Bliss" from Tonight's Decision, and "Tonight's Music", "Clean Today", and "Passing Bird" from Last Fair Deal Gone Down. I would listen to that set (almost exclusively the clean vocal ones from the latter two albums at first) every few weeks, and found it really intriguing. I bought the CD of Viva Emptiness the year after sometime after it came out, and listened to it a truckload. Then a year after that, I still fondly remember going into Tower Records and splurging to get the recently released Brave Yester Years, which was a compilation of tracks and B-sides from the early years, and the SE versions of LFDGD, TD, and maybe one or two of the first three, can't remember which. That was my first exposure to the very earliest material, and I didn't know what to make of it at the time. I was still in the period of extreme metal being a growing portion of my taste, but I didn't yet enjoy the harsh vocal style, and the sloppiness of the music and production style of that era was a bit much for me at that point.
I have a draft of it, I just need to do some more listening and research and flesh things out a bit more. Probably post it sometime tomorrow.I won't be around that much in the next few days but I will at the very least update the thread title tomorrow night if you've posted. And as I get time I'll add my thoughts on the album and reply to everyone.
*I must admit also that it took a number of years of being a fan of theirs before I realized that Jonas' last name is "Renkse" and not "Renske"
It's weird that they would have a "guest" to such a large percentage of the vocals.
*The BMD tour was the first one to travel outside of Sweden, where they took In The Woods and Voice of Destruction with them. Jonas was a bit more comfortable with vocals at this point and wanted to perform them instead of drums...Their tour bus did not have heat, and this eventually took a toll on Jonas' voice, making him too sick to even speak, necessitating Anders would have to perform vocals instead.
I'm not sold on Jonas as a drummer yet.
I'm not sold on Jonas as a drummer yet.
I don't think Jonas was sold on Jonas as a drummer.
Rainroom- the change at 4:40 is nasty.
although I find it hard to believe any serious Katatonia fan could say this is their best album?
although I find it hard to believe any serious Katatonia fan could say this is their best album?
There is a fairly sizeable chunk of extreme metal fans who like the first two for being quite unique in the death/black metal landscape, but dismiss anything after them as boring alt rock. I've run into quite a few of them online over the years. It probably doesn't break down perfectly this way, but as far as I can tell it's more black metal fans that like the first album for its unique melodic style, blending of black/doom/death influences, keyboards, the relative rawness and such. The sophomore album draws a combination of Opeth and/or Akerfeldt fans, or just fans of growled vocals in general, shoegaze fans, or some who just appreciate the rarity of the style experimented with on that album.
I was thinking over the last few days that Celtic Frost/Triptykon is another impossible to classify band that draws from as large or larger a pool of genres than Katatonia does, with a similar less technical, darker and atmospheric approach.
I have as well. I feel for those fans, that they are missing out on so much. :) I imagine it was quite the shock for a lot of their existing fans when they dropped the harsh vocals.although I find it hard to believe any serious Katatonia fan could say this is their best album?
There is a fairly sizeable chunk of extreme metal fans who like the first two for being quite unique in the death/black metal landscape, but dismiss anything after them as boring alt rock. I've run into quite a few of them online over the years.
It probably doesn't break down perfectly this way, but as far as I can tell it's more black metal fans that like the first album for its unique melodic style, blending of black/doom/death influences, keyboards, the relative rawness and such. The sophomore album draws a combination of Opeth and/or Akerfeldt fans, or just fans of growled vocals in general, shoegaze fans, or some who just appreciate the rarity of the style experimented with on that album.I've seen Triptykon live a couple times and thought they were kind of hypnotic and enjoyed their set. I never went further to check out their albums, but it's interesting that you mentioned them.
I was thinking over the last few days that Celtic Frost/Triptykon is another impossible to classify band that draws from as large or larger a pool of genres than Katatonia does, with a similar less technical, darker and atmospheric approach.
I was away for a few days, and I just wanted to post a couple of thoughts on Brave Murder Day and what it means for me in the context of Katatonia's discography...
Well, first off, I LOVE the album. I think it's just such a unique record. Sure, it can be generally categorized as "death/doom" and there is nothing wrong with that. But there's something about it that sets it apart. I'd say it's mostly Anders' approach to the riffing - those repeating and "cascading" motifs, together with the steady tempos. That, to me, really becomes a trademark of Katatonia from this album on...even though most of what comes after BMD is quite different, there are many traces of the Katatonia "riff" in songs scattered throughout their discography. Speaking of BMD, it's certainly something that sets this apart from Dance... While their debut was already kinda "different", the more linear song structures here really are a step in a new direction. In particular, Brave, Murder and Rainroom are, imo, the defining songs of this album.
Back in 1996, when BMD was released, one of my best friends and music "buddy" got it - he was into more extreme music than me, at the time. Copied it on a tape for me. He was pretty excited about this one, as it sounded quite different from anything we'd heard before. On a superficial level, yes, it didn't seem like some of the songs needed to last that long. But, in a way, that added to that almost "otherwordly" desperation they conveyed. Well, that's what we thought as 19-year old kids, at least ;D It was strange but quite powerful. Again, those riffs - so sad, but at the same time almost uplifting.
I tend to be a bit wary of the "you had to be there" argument when I see it. Often it comes across as "you just can't understand the same way I do how deep and meaningful this is " :biggrin: I worry I'm doing the same here. However, there really isn't anything particularly deep here...it's just that I think at the time Katatonia really did create something pretty unique for the genre. And then of course proceeded to move away from it, almost immediately :)
As for where BMD stands for me: it has a very special place in my music journey, for sure. It still stands very tall among Katatonia records, even just for that reason, but also (and most importantly) because, well, I love the music in it. That said, Katatonia is a very different band now, and I do prefer a good number of their subsequent albums to this one...but we will get to that soon enough :)
so sad, but at the same time almost uplifting.
The bolded statement... That's what Katatonia is like for me, except for the "almost" part.
so sad, but at the same time almost uplifting.
The bolded statement... That's what Katatonia is like for me, except for the "almost" part.
I think it can be a form of emotional catharsis. I listen to a ton of miserable music, but I think it makes me happy, and I don't believe I'm a depressing person. I know Steven Wilson has talked about listening to and playing sad music being a way to channel those feelings in a more productive fashion, so he doesn't have to be as negative of a person as he might otherwise be.
Thanks for describing your experience with it. At the time, did you try to get Dance of December Souls and their EPs right away after liking Brave Murder Day so much? Or did that come later?
Oh, and since we are still on Brave Murder Day...
In case you guys don't know them, the band Rapture (from Finland), now defunct, did manage to credibly follow the path set by that album. Their debut ("Futile"), in particular, is very, very good and a recommended listen.
Saw You Drown
Saw You Drown- Kind of gloomy, but pretty harmless track. It has a nice sound to it.
Nerve- Opening riff reminded me a bit of Nirvana. The vocal is horrendous in the verses. It does improve a bit for the following sections.
Scarlet Heavens- The first minute intro sounds like some 6th graders trying to play a Rush song. Kind of a gothy vocal. Jonas still seems to be looking for his place, vocally.
As for where BMD stands for me: it has a very special place in my music journey, for sure. It still stands very tall among Katatonia records, even just for that reason, but also (and most importantly) because, well, I love the music in it. That said, Katatonia is a very different band now, and I do prefer a good number of their subsequent albums to this one...but we will get to that soon enough :)
I didn't listen to it last week when it was first mentioned. I don't think I did. :lol
Scarlet Heavens Total Gothic vibe which I have a big secret spot for. Has an 80's feel to it. The production on the drums hurts it a bit. The double bass still feels a little off. A tad long, but I totally like this song.
So I confuse.
Is this a new album with the Saw You Drown EP added to the end? Or are the Saw You Down tracks rerecorded?
I didn't see SYD on Spotify, but I did see the songs listed on the Discouraged Ones, which is on Spotify and that is what I listened to for those songs.
*This was Jonas' last album on drums. I think I neglected to mention this last week, but Jonas had talked about around when BMD came out that he didn't really have the opportunity to practice, so his drumming had stagnated.
I'm pretty sure Discouraged Ones was recorded all in one session with Skogsberg at Sunlight Studio, including "Saw You Drown", "Nerve", and "Quiet World". They just released those tracks early as part of the Saw You Drown EP, along with "Scarlet Heavens", which was recorded in a separate session earlier with Swano at Unisound.I don't know if this is completely accurate but the Wikipedia page for Saw You Drown has Quiet World being recorded during the same session as Sounds of Decay.
Gothic rock bands have always been a big part of their influence, and I think at the time they recorded "Scarlet Heavens" they contemplated continuing along that path (I believe Anders wrote a few others in that vein that didn't get recorded), but ultimately they decided against it and kept it as more of an undercurrent to their sonic potpourri rather than the primary focus.Yes. Anders had written some material when they had kind of split but Jonas didn't really want to go in that direction and Brave Murder Day is where they went instead.
Ah, Discouraged Ones...I have a real soft spot for this one. First album bought "in real time" as a fan. I wasn't at all disappointed by the change in sound. If anything, given that I wasn't too much into more extreme styles of metal (including harsh vocals) at the time, the clean vocals were more than welcome. Like I said before, I had loved BMD, but this foray into more explicitly "sad" music was even more in line with my taste.I agree with both of your observations here.
I agree with Litho's observation that there are songs on this record that, with a different sound and singer, wouldn't have been out of place on BMD. The relatively straightforward drumming and the riffing style was very much "Katatonia" - I'm thinking especially I Break, Deadhouse and Relention, which also happen to be among my favorites here. The one-two punch of Deadhouse and Relention, in particular. Yes, they are very, very simple songs in structure, but the main riffs (in both) are genius in their simplicity, for me. They are so poppy and melancholic, at the same time. They really hit the right notes.
Anyway, other than the differences in sound, Discouraged Ones certainly does introduce new elements too. Agree on The Cure, and generally a more "alternative" influence. Cold Ways does all of this beautifully...the coda, in particular, is so good, with the subtle guitar lead line creeping in. Not particularly bothered by the vocals in it, to be honest.I'm kind of in between on the vocals. I'm pretty certain that if just about any song on this album had been my first taste of Katatonia, I would have moved on. And the vocals would have been the main reason. (But musically it also doesn't sound like anything I'd have been listening to either.) My first impression of the vocals was that they were kind of bad, and perhaps they are, but I've found a certain charm to them and it allowed me to continue and appreciate the music as well.
But, really, I love this record, beyond the "nostalgia" element. I do find it is pretty unique within Katatonia's discography, overall.
Wait...I have to listen to them more than once?? :lolNo. That's what I'd do, because I need more than one listen to really absorb new music. And to see if something might grow on me. But you're not required. :)
Why not, you already listened to one twice and didn't even notice. :p
:lol That's true!
How do you rank it against the first two? Maybe we should rank the albums as we go along?
For me so far, it's:
- Discouraged Ones
- Dance of December Souls
- Brave Murder Day
Just wait 'til Liljekvist gets in the band. ;)
I don't really hear much The Cure in this one, maybe if I did I would like it more.
I don't really hear much The Cure in this one, maybe if I did I would like it more.
You don't notice any resemblance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbrqsNgRa9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI1FNtiODH4&
It's just that you're the first person I've ever recalled denying the influence. I'm sure there are others, you're just the first I've come across. :p
I'm tempted to say either LFDGD or VE feel like the first "real" Katatonia album, but I guess we'll see early next month.
So, how's it going? Are you hanging in there TAC or have you become a discouraged one? :) I imagine this album isn't your thing and likely not the next, but even if you don't really get into any of them, you'll start finding them more enjoyable.
I just got finished seeing a string of Katatonia shows (which were incredible) and will post the next album tomorrow. I'm pretty much finished with the write up but it'll be easier to format from my PC instead of phone.
I do, but I haven't been back to any shows since the pandemic started. Maybe again at some point.
My brain is not wired for music this consistently slow. :lol
There's a part of me that has a soft spot for a steady pace gothy vibe like Dawn Of Solace and even though they have harshies, Tribulation. I love classic Fields Of The Nephilim and I hear a little of them here.
My brain is not wired for music this consistently slow. :lol
*Makes note for future TAC roulettes, "no funeral doom or dark ambient..."*
:lol
Gone-Er...next..
I'm not sure what genre you would call this album and Discouraged Ones. I always think of these albums together, even though they are quite different from each other.
Jonas is very much still finding his voice here, but I think there's a definite improvement from Discouraged Ones. I've said it before and will probably again - I'm very glad to have this opportunity to hear how his voice changed like this. Most of the time, or at least as it relates to the bands I listen to, the singer may improve over time but even on their first album their voice is more set. With Katatonia it's almost like witnessing someone learning how to sing and sharing it all with us.
Favorite track: A Darkness Coming.It's fascinating that we both picked "A Darkness Coming" as our favorite track from this album.
Maybe Bob Dylan really is the best lyric writer ever - I wouldn’t know, because I can’t stand his voice.
And Mattias had played with drummer Daniel Liljekvist in another band.
Great write-up, Lethean...and always cool to read your additional notes, Litho.
Great write-up, Lethean...and always cool to read your additional notes, Litho.
I can either listen to the album or read the writeups. I don't have time for both! :lol
I listened to the album a few days ago and took notes, and there's some overlap with Lethean, but I figured maybe I'd just leave them since it's interesting to see how similarly or differently we hear some things.I definitely enjoy reading your notes, especially some of the technical things that I don't really notice.
*Oh wow, right from the very few notes of the album I'm transported back two decades. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, "For My Demons" was one of the first half-dozen MP3s I stumbled across from them, and this was the sound of Katatonia that I associated with them for the first year or more. Growing up in the 90s, alt rock was huge among my friends, and I casually liked some of it, but most of it never fully hit for me. Well, this is the somber, Swedish version of it, and man is it so much better suited to me than the mainstream bands were. And we're not even into Katatonia's best stuff yet. "Right Into the Bliss" was another of those first tracks for me so that opening guitar melody is so indelibly imprinted in my head I'm sure I could go 1,000 years without hearing it and still be able to hum it.For me the 90s was about grunge and also discovering Rush and Queensryche. I think Tool is one of the only bands they've listened as an influence that I also listened so, though I know at least Jonas also likes Alice in Chains. But the majority of the bands they list as influences I've never heard and maybe that's for the best, because this era of Katatonia sounds pretty unique to me.
*For a long time I didn't know that "Nightmares By the Sea" wasn't written by Katatonia. Kind of an unusual tone on the rhythm guitars in the verse, they almost sound like bass parts. I just can't listen to Buckley's original without hearing Katatonia at this point.I remember thinking it didn't quite sound like the rest of the album, but I also probably looked at the liner notes right away and knew one of the songs would be a cover, so that doesn't really count. :) But I do think they do a great job of making covers sound like their own.
I've tried to use this logic to convince a fan of their newer material to give the older stuff a few more listens - and they've started to be intrigued so maybe it will work. :)Jonas is very much still finding his voice here, but I think there's a definite improvement from Discouraged Ones. I've said it before and will probably again - I'm very glad to have this opportunity to hear how his voice changed like this. Most of the time, or at least as it relates to the bands I listen to, the singer may improve over time but even on their first album their voice is more set. With Katatonia it's almost like witnessing someone learning how to sing and sharing it all with us.
Man, I could swear I made a similar comment, but was it about Jonas, or even earlier in this thread? I'm gonna have to hunt for it, but I definitely agree with the sentiment, because it's so unusual to see, the majority of musicians appear at least mostly preformed by the time we hear their first works.
Perhaps because it's undeniable. :)Favorite track: A Darkness Coming.It's fascinating that we both picked "A Darkness Coming" as our favorite track from this album.
I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but I know this has happened to me as well.Maybe Bob Dylan really is the best lyric writer ever - I wouldn’t know, because I can’t stand his voice.
Hah, I see that we both share a distaste for Dylan. Many times I've heard a song and liked it, discovered that it's a Dylan cover, but just can't get into the original because of his voice.
*Starting wtih the tour, this is definitely what I would consider as the iconic Katatonia lineup, with Jonas, Anders, Fredrik, Mattias, and Daniel, that they'd get four of their best albums out of.For me... I'll be honest and say I don't really care who is in the band outside of Jonas and Anders. I was concerned by one member leaving and will go into it when we get there, but it turned out completely fine in the end. I'd certainly like the current lineup to stick around now. And I imagine they don't want to deal with finding new members yet again either, so for their sakes, I hope it lasts. But if someone leaves it won't be much of an issue for me.
Every time I do revisit, though, I enjoy it. And I love that you can still very much recognize Anders' signature riffing - especially in songs like For My Demons, In Death, A Song, Right Into the Bliss, No Good Can Come of This (the chorus). A Darkness Coming is a great song, and one where we start to see shades of what Katatonia would become. At first, I didn't know Nightmares by the Sea was a cover either (although the vocals had a different vibe)...always loved the part that starts around 2:20. Oh, and Dan Swano's drumming on the album is cool, and it of course gives the whole thing a very different feel, right from the start.
So, overall not among my favorites... and yet it's another enjoyable slab of dark, melancholic rock from these good ol' jolly Swedes :biggrin:
I can either listen to the album or read the writeups. I don't have time for both! :lol
For me the 90s was about grunge and also discovering Rush and Queensryche. I think Tool is one of the only bands they've listened as an influence that I also listened so, though I know at least Jonas also likes Alice in Chains. But the majority of the bands they list as influences I've never heard and maybe that's for the best, because this era of Katatonia sounds pretty unique to me.
For me... I'll be honest and say I don't really care who is in the band outside of Jonas and Anders. I was concerned by one member leaving and will go into it when we get there, but it turned out completely fine in the end. I'd certainly like the current lineup to stick around now. And I imagine they don't want to deal with finding new members yet again either, so for their sakes, I hope it lasts. But if someone leaves it won't be much of an issue for me.
I wasn't really looking for anything specific at that time. I just heard both Rush and Queensryche on the radio station that I was listening to in order to hear Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, etc. I had no idea what prog was at that point - I was just hearing stuff that I liked. I didn't get into DT until Six Degrees though. And any other prog metal was around the same time, except I had heard a song or two of Fates Warning a couple years before.For me the 90s was about grunge and also discovering Rush and Queensryche. I think Tool is one of the only bands they've listened as an influence that I also listened so, though I know at least Jonas also likes Alice in Chains. But the majority of the bands they list as influences I've never heard and maybe that's for the best, because this era of Katatonia sounds pretty unique to me.
I've listened to pretty much everyone they cite as an influence, and I think it helps increase my appreciation for how they synthesize everything together. And they still sound quite unique in spite of seeing where they've pulled some of their ideas from. You're either a little older than me or got into the cooler music more quickly than I did. A high school friend turned me onto Rush in '98, but I don't think I even knew who Queensryche was until the early 00s after getting into DT and slowly exploring the US prog metal scene.
Plus there's old live video in my write up, and you should totally watch it. :)
Plus there's old live video in my write up, and you should totally watch it. :)
Oh, I haven't commented on that...I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but it's such a cool document of that era! Didn't know it existed :)
Okay, Tonight's Decision. The first thing I'll point out is that I love the cover art, and it is my favorite Katatonia album cover, out of a pretty stellar catalog of covers. I bought the vinyl just because I love the cover art so much.I think it's my third favorite cover. It's really stunning and maybe I should do the same with the vinyl's. I have a couple just because of the package they were in but I don't have a record player so I usually don't bother.
Now, to the album itself. I agree that this album and Discouraged Ones are linked together, but quite different. The production is a big factor in this. The drumming is a lot more competent (even with Dan not knowing the songs very well), and the guitars are much warmer and lively than before. The songs feel much more fleshed out, and there is not much of that hypnotic, repetitive riffing that was found on DO and BMD. There is clearly still a darkness to the record, but the cleaner production makes this record feel quite different from DO's murky sonics. There is still some metallic riffing to be found, but even more of those alternative influences have crept in. Jonas' vocals play a part in the difference too. He obviously made a big leap in his cleans from DO, but also the vocal melodies are more dynamic and there are more background vocals to accent.Regarding the bolded - I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. Maybe it's as simple as Jonas' vocals, while there's a definite improvement from one to the other, still being so different from how they'd eventually end up. But I totally agree with what you've said about the differences, yet I still always think of them together.
I really enjoy this album and all the songs on it, although I probably have the hardest time ranking it in their discography. For My Demons is a great opener and the solid run continues from there. The other standouts are In Death A Song, Right Into The Bliss, Strained, A Darkness Coming, Black Session, and No Devotion.
Jonas was clearly in his panic mode as he stood still the whole show with his hair completely obscuring his face. The rest of the band more than made up for his lack of energy.
Resisting the temptation to just post about that show now... :P
So, um.. album rankings:
OK, I finally got to Tonight's Decision...
This Punishment- Really cool and atmospheric. The awful vocals kind of fit. Kind of..
No Good Can Come Of This- The intro riff reminds me a little of Rush's Time And Motion. Musically, a harmless, even decent song, but the vocals..I've never thought about that before - I'll have to listen to them together.
Strained-Pretty nice song. I love the line "I'd like to try and live my life again." That's really interesting.I love that line as well, and the lyrics really contribute to making this one of my favorite songs on the album.
A Darkness Coming- Up until the 2:30 mark, I was thinking this was easily the best song I've heard in this thread. The solo is awesome. But I'm still trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking between the two parts. yeah, great tune, but that section threw me off.I like it that way. I also think it's pretty much the best song in this thread; though I do like many of the others as well. This one is really haunting.
No Devotion- Something with a little pace. Some cool parts though.I thought that about both of these tracks. Their bonus tracks are always as good as anything else they do.
Fractured- How did this not make the album? I even dig the hidden track.
The vocals are....DREADFUL. I mean, it's like some teenage kid rambling and mumbling into the mike while his school chum friends jam in his basement.Do you like the vocals less on this album than on Discouraged Ones? Because I think there's been some improvement. Or maybe they're just starting to get to you? Hang in there - they're a lot better on the next one and then after that they're pretty awesome (imo) and I imagine you'll at least find them listenable.
Other than the occasional Gothic nod, I am really struggling to latch onto anything. They are the antithesis of everything I like in my music.
Do you like the vocals less on this album than on Discouraged Ones?
Your track by track thoughts seem a little more positive than this last bit, but I think that makes sense and could see myself doing the same with certain bands. Song by song I could like stuff here and there but the overall impression could be less favorable.
Do you like the vocals less on this album than on Discouraged Ones?
I'd have to reread my post. Off the top of my head, I really don't remember. It was one listen a week and a half ago. I can't imagine they'd be worse than this though.
I thought that about both of these tracks. Their bonus tracks are always as good as anything else they do.
No Devotion- Something with a little pace. Some cool parts though.
Fractured- How did this not make the album? I even dig the hidden track.
Something that might intrigue you, Tim - I don't remember exactly when they recorded it (almost sure it's later, so it'll come up further down the road), but they also have a cover of Priest's When The Night Comes Down...I found it fits them quite well...
Something that might intrigue you, Tim - I don't remember exactly when they recorded it (almost sure it's later, so it'll come up further down the road), but they also have a cover of Priest's When The Night Comes Down...I found it fits them quite well...
Cool!
Do you like the vocals less on this album than on Discouraged Ones?
I'd have to reread my post. Off the top of my head, I really don't remember. It was one listen a week and a half ago. I can't imagine they'd be worse than this though.
Not to speak for Tim, but my take on Jonas' vocals here vs. on Discouraged Ones kinda goes along with my take on the music. In many ways, both the music and the vocals improved on Tonight's Decision, but because the songs now are going into a more elaborate/"rock" direction, it almost feels the standards we hold them to are a bit heightened too. Or at least that's how I feel. The inconsistencies and the flaws are "easier" to spot. Discouraged Ones was such a one-of-a-kind record, with its dejected mood and all, that those vocals and the bare-bones instrumentation worked just right for me.
That totally makes sense. I think the vocals are ok enough for me to enjoy the album, but I've also had a lot more time with it and time to absorb the lyrics, etc.
I can see that. I don't think I would have given any of that stuff much of my attention at the time. But who knows; I hadn't even discovered DT yet. I certainly did have to get used to the vocals coming at it backwards from Night is the New Day and Dead End Kings.
That totally makes sense. I think the vocals are ok enough for me to enjoy the album, but I've also had a lot more time with it and time to absorb the lyrics, etc.
I'm 100% with you on that. Jonas' vocals were never a problem for me, even at the time. I think it was in part because there were several bands I liked in the mid to late 90s - with a sound in the general vicinity of this, some more "extreme", some less - where the vocals were not really the main, um, selling point. To me it was more the general package, the mood, and the goosebump-factor I was looking for.
One example - the Italian band Novembre (I recently sent a song of theirs in Luke's roulette! :biggrin:). They actually were relatively close buddies with that Swedish scene, with Dan Swano producing their early stuff and (I think) being friends with the guys in Katatonia and Opeth. Anyway, they were releasing albums around the same time we are talking about here. Their music for me was fantastic - just a stellar combo of dark, death, doom (and some black too, at the very beginning). The vocals...well, as Luke can confirm, not their strong suit, especially the cleans (although they did get better in time!). But, given the genre, I didn't care, really. I didn't have to force myself to like them, I just thought they worked fine with the music.
I'm glad it was. :) I'll try to do that for each of the albums going forward.
Also, to be fair Lethean, your post highlighting your favourite lyrics probably helped as those ones seemed to stick out when listening, so that was kinda helpful.
Except for Litho's mention of the single/EP, I haven't seen Teargas highlighted in the write-ups...I was a bit surprised, as it's no doubt one of my favorite songs in here and, well, one of my favorite Katatonia songs, period! I thought it was a fan-favorite, but maybe not? Or maybe just not a DTF-fan favorite? :biggrin: I don't know, but I love it. The quiet start that just explodes in THAT riff that's so genius in its simplicity, along with the drumming...the magnificent chorus...the relatively weird structure, with just one verse. It has spoken to me since the first time I've heard it.
Except for Litho's mention of the single/EP, I haven't seen Teargas highlighted in the write-ups...I was a bit surprised, as it's no doubt one of my favorite songs in here and, well, one of my favorite Katatonia songs, period! I thought it was a fan-favorite, but maybe not? Or maybe just not a DTF-fan favorite?
I enjoy the experiment in We Must Bury You, and always found Jonas' vocals in the chorus mildly terrifying ;)Yes. And the lyrics are as well. They're interesting too - from the perspective of someone who wasn't able/simply didn't put a stop to it.
I love Discouraged Ones and Tonight's Decision (especially the former), just didn't catch this thread before :POh I didn't mean to imply that you didn't. :). What do you think about the first two?
Not familiar with them, it's been years since I checked them out. This should be my chance to finally get into them...I love Discouraged Ones and Tonight's Decision (especially the former), just didn't catch this thread before :POh I didn't mean to imply that you didn't. :). What do you think about the first two?
A bit of a tangent here, I use Yandex.Music as my go-to streaming service, and today it showed me my stats for what I listened to this year. The album I spun the most was:That's a great choice. :) It doesn't tell you how many plays you had of that album?
(https://i.ibb.co/ZGf1DGL/Screenshot-20221204-161737-Yandex-Music.jpg)
A bit of a tangent here, I use Yandex.Music as my go-to streaming service, and today it showed me my stats for what I listened to this year. The album I spun the most was:That's a great choice. :) It doesn't tell you how many plays you had of that album?
(https://i.ibb.co/ZGf1DGL/Screenshot-20221204-161737-Yandex-Music.jpg)
I am going to try and get to this today. The improved drumming comments have me interested. Hopefully the vocals are better developed as well.
Before you guys scrutinize what I meant by holyshitwow, I was strictly talking about the drumming. Before I listened, I read a lot of comments about how the drumming was so much better.No that's what I thought you meant - just the drumming. But then we expanded it. :)
My point was that, yes it was better, but not to a point where I was holyshitwow.
I was not using holyshitwow in any way to describe a song or the album...just the drumming.
Luke, while we're waiting for Litho to take his sweet time posting about Viva Emptiness, tell us your thoughts on Last Fair Deal Gone Down. :)
I saw Katatonia last night, and I'm still emotional and excited about it. They were amazing on this tour.
Luke, while we're waiting for Litho to take his sweet time posting about Viva Emptiness, tell us your thoughts on Last Fair Deal Gone Down. :)
I saw Katatonia last night, and I'm still emotional and excited about it. They were amazing on this tour.
I do prefer Last Fair Deal Gone Down more than the previous album. I think I posted after my first listen that it feels more like a band hitting their stride, for this style of music. Yes, the drumming is better and I prefer the vocals as well.
Luke, while we're waiting for Litho to take his sweet time posting about Viva Emptiness, tell us your thoughts on Last Fair Deal Gone Down. :)
I saw Katatonia last night, and I'm still emotional and excited about it. They were amazing on this tour.
Just finishing up my second listen. As you all know, I'm not actually very good at putting into words why I like something, or what it is I like. I do prefer Last Fair Deal Gone Down more than the previous album. I think I posted after my first listen that it feels more like a band hitting their stride, for this style of music. Yes, the drumming is better and I prefer the vocals as well.
Very important to note that Viva got completely remixed and remastered by David Castillo for a 2013 release. I find it superior to the original mix by far. Picked up the 2013 edition on CD and vinyl.
This is the start of what I call Modern Katatonia. It's all good from here on out for me. Ghost Of The Sun is such a great track to kick off this era. A favorite of mine and even better that I got to see it performed live. Inside the City of Glass is instrumental on the original and has lyrics on the 2013 edition.
Artwork for the 2013 edition features the same girl from the original cover but grown up. Pretty cool.
Hah! Thanks! ;D
So just so I'm clear, Viva Emptiness is the new album correct? I don't think I can commit to the compilations though.
Luke, while we're waiting for Litho to take his sweet time posting about Viva Emptiness, tell us your thoughts on Last Fair Deal Gone Down. :)
I saw Katatonia last night, and I'm still emotional and excited about it. They were amazing on this tour.
Just finishing up my second listen. As you all know, I'm not actually very good at putting into words why I like something, or what it is I like. I do prefer Last Fair Deal Gone Down more than the previous album. I think I posted after my first listen that it feels more like a band hitting their stride, for this style of music. Yes, the drumming is better and I prefer the vocals as well.
I didn't know that, but I relate because the bolded absolutely applies to me as well.
Very important to note that Viva got completely remixed and remastered by David Castillo for a 2013 release. I find it superior to the original mix by far. Picked up the 2013 edition on CD and vinyl.
This is the start of what I call Modern Katatonia. It's all good from here on out for me. Ghost Of The Sun is such a great track to kick off this era. A favorite of mine and even better that I got to see it performed live. Inside the City of Glass is instrumental on the original and has lyrics on the 2013 edition.
Artwork for the 2013 edition features the same girl from the original cover but grown up. Pretty cool.
Man, I guess you can't win. Earlier I get scolded for leaping ahead and suggesting TAC listen to one of their recent songs that has more of a Judas Priest vibe. Now someone else jumps ahead a decade to talk about a rerecording that relies on three additional albums of development, and I did already hint in the VE post that they would do something with the mixes later on. :) I think I'd rather wait and discuss all the differences when we get to that point, unless everyone else is too antsy.
@Lethean, can you clear some space in your inbox? I want to run an idea by you via PM. :)Done :)
Killer post from Nick. You know it's a good one when I've heard the album dozens and dozens of times, maybe over 100, including another half a dozen within a week while I chipped away at the post, and yet now after reading Nick's I feel like I need to listen to half the songs again and double check all those little details. :tup
Phew, a lot to catch up on here. I've got Viva Emptiness queued up to listen to tomorrow so will give an impression once I've given a listen.
I appreciate the work going into this thread guys and it really does help give a better understanding and appreciation of the band. They may not end up becoming one of my favorite bands but I can see myself revisiting their music fairly regularly.Luke, while we're waiting for Litho to take his sweet time posting about Viva Emptiness, tell us your thoughts on Last Fair Deal Gone Down. :)
I saw Katatonia last night, and I'm still emotional and excited about it. They were amazing on this tour.
Just finishing up my second listen. As you all know, I'm not actually very good at putting into words why I like something, or what it is I like. I do prefer Last Fair Deal Gone Down more than the previous album. I think I posted after my first listen that it feels more like a band hitting their stride, for this style of music. Yes, the drumming is better and I prefer the vocals as well.
I didn't know that, but I relate because the bolded absolutely applies to me as well.
Yea, I said 'as you all know', but I guess I meant 'if you've participated in my roulettes you'll know'. I can read the way some of you guys put into words why you like certain bands/albums/songs, and I'm here like...
(https://media.tenor.com/eHIRFWRKeQoAAAAC/marge-i-just-think-theyre-neat.gif)
Timing question for the group. Litho will probably post the next album around the 18th. Do you me to wait longer than a week to post the one after? Either way I'm not posting it on Christmas day, but do you want me to post it right after, or do you want more time to be able to listen to Litho's in case you're busy with relatives/shopping/cooking/etc?
Yep, here is my updated "as-we-go-along" ranking:I'm like that with a few of their albums. One where I have a really strong emotional connection to, but aside from that, any of them could be my favorite and I often think the one I'm listening to is.
1. Last Fair Deal Gone Down
2. Viva Emptiness
3. Brave Murder Day
4. Discouraged Ones
5. Tonight's Decision
6. Dance of December Souls
As I said before, LFDGD and Viva Emptiness could easily be 1a and 1b...I just have a somewhat stronger connection with the former, but I'm not even sure anymore. Quality-wise they are both SO strong for me...
I do a lot of listening while walking on trails and stuff and got into a lot of this album that way.
I should be able to get to this tomorrow. I have the day off with nothing to do. ;D
I didn't think it was the best thing ever after my first listen, so I shouldn't expect the same from you. :)
I didn't think it was the best thing ever after my first listen, so I shouldn't expect the same from you. :)
Probably best you keep this mindset moving forwards :lol
I gave Viva Emptiness a second listen today. I was working whilst I was listening, but can't say I remember a great deal about it. None of it is bad, but it didn't particularly jump out at me today.
Great write up by the way LithoJazzoSphere, hope you haven't oversold this next one, because it sounds great!
Also great insight into the lyrics Lethean, looking forward to spinning this.
I didn't think it was the best thing ever after my first listen, so I shouldn't expect the same from you. :)
Probably best you keep this mindset moving forwards :lol
I gave Viva Emptiness a second listen today. I was working whilst I was listening, but can't say I remember a great deal about it. None of it is bad, but it didn't particularly jump out at me today.
Great write up by the way LithoJazzoSphere, hope you haven't oversold this next one, because it sounds great!
Also great insight into the lyrics Lethean, looking forward to spinning this.
Luke, I can see you enjoy The Great Cold Distance. It's a really cool record. I would've thought you'd like Viva Emptiness too, actually. Don't give up on it...it tends to sneak up on you when you least expect it ;)[
The Great Cold Distance, hands down my favorite Katatonia record. I have spent a lot on time and money on this one. Have the big deluxe artbook reissue, the double vinyl reissue, the vinyl of the live show in Plovdiv, etc. July is my favorite song of theirs.I don't have any vinyl at all unless it was part of a package I wanted, so I think I have one or two from Katatonia, but maybe not The Great Cold Distance. But I love the deluxe art book. All 19 tracks, the Plovdiv set on cd, beautiful artwork of course.
Love, love, love this record.
The Great Cold Distance - I am pretty sure this is my favourite Katatonia album. Just love this one, amazing songs from start to finish. I think if I had to name just one song as my favourite it would be July but they are all great.
Also, in terms of lyrics, after experiencing the Covid lockdowns and mask wearing I started to associate the lyrics of Soils Song with the pandemic. Read the lyrics Lethean posted above and see what you think.
In terms of performances on the album, they are all great. I think Litho's write up really says it all here. Just a great write up and thanks for doing this.
In the White does start a bit like My Twin pt.2, but then it develops into its own beast. It's cool that the vocal melody in the chorus reprises the guitar theme in the beginning of the song.
TAC, how about a night before night before Christmas Viva Emptiness first impressions post.... :)
Complicity- This is the type of song that I feel represents this time period, especially on the radio. It's not a style that appeals to me, but I've heard a millions songs on the radio just like it.
I haven't read the album blurb from you guys yet, so maybe it's addressed, but is there a new guitarist?
Why does Evidence and Omerta have significantly more streams on Spotify?
BTW TAC, you've heard Ghost of the Sun before since I sent it in the Sun and Moon round of your roulette. :) I don't remember everything you said, but you didn't care for the f bombs.
Evidence is one of the best songs there is, so clearly you have to listen to it more. :)
4. Lethean...Katatonia - Ghost Of The Sun
"Much better, thank you."
This was miles better than the first two Katatonia songs I received. I really liked it until I got to the chorus. Honestly, I found it kind of off putting with the F bombs. Though musically, the chorus lets the song down too. But there's enough here to give them an honest shot post roulette.
Quite possibly one of the most underrated drummer in metal- it’s a crime he left the music industry to focus on personal commitments.
Volante, can I ask where Jonas mentioned that he had writer's block himself? I know Anders has and that'll be coming up shortly but I've never read it about Jonas.
Nope- could have sworn it was Jonas but I must have gotten my Swedes mixed up and it was indeed Anders prior to NitND. Thank you for the correction.
In regards to Daniel Liljekvist still being active in music- I stand corrected there as well- looks like he’s definitely gotten more active recently with Grand Cadaver. Some tasty playing on In Mourning’s Afterglow (highly recommended). Glad to see he’s still playing. To be honest, I haven’t followed Katatonia (or their ex-members) very closely since about 2017-2018 as I’ve found their output post-“Dead End Kings” to be somewhat redundant and uneven but I digress.
Night Is The New Day was also my very first Katatonia record. If I remember correctly, Akerfeldt had posted that the album was a masterpiece. Since I was huge into Opeth at that point, I took his recommendation and never looked back. Forsaker is quite an intro to the band.That's really cool. Opeth helped set me on the Katatonia path as well, though in my case it was bad reviews from the Heritage tour that put the show on my radar. :)
And since I jumped the gun, I will reiterate my love for the live album. I bought the original vinyl only release and remembered trying to rip it. It did not go well so I am so glad they finally put it out on CD.I remember it being vinyl only at first. At the time I thought it was disappointing, but had more than enough material to keep me busy for a while so I told myself to be patient and it paid off. :)
This tour was also my first time seeing them. They opened for Opeth at The Vic on the Heritage tour. I had already seen Opeth a few times and was not thrilled with Heritage so that show was all about Katatonia for me. They got a sizable slot if I remember correctly. Opeth gave them some time to play which was awesome.Yes, I remember it being longer than I'd expected for an opening slot. Did you ever come to like Heritage more? I never really fell in love with the album - I liked it pretty well, but not as much as thought I would when I found out they had dropped the harsh vocals.
QuoteThis tour was also my first time seeing them. They opened for Opeth at The Vic on the Heritage tour. I had already seen Opeth a few times and was not thrilled with Heritage so that show was all about Katatonia for me. They got a sizable slot if I remember correctly. Opeth gave them some time to play which was awesome.Yes, I remember it being longer than I'd expected for an opening slot. Did you ever come to like Heritage more? I never really fell in love with the album - I liked it pretty well, but not as much as thought I would when I found out they had dropped the harsh vocals.
Lethean, another great write-up, as usual. You may have mentioned earlier in the thread, but how many times have you seen Katatonia?I've seen them 25 times. They mentioned in an interview that they want to come back to North America for Sky Void of Stars, so hopefully they will and you'll be able to see them sooner rather than later.
They are currently my number one band to see live, that I have not yet seen. I wanted to hit the Atlanta show on this past tour, but the timing wasn't right. Hopefully I will see them soon...
Night is the New Day! Actually, Lethean, you are not wrong about the number of listens needed to appreciate it...It took me a while too. I think it has to do with the melodies (especially Jonas' singing) being much subtler, for the most part. Something I noted with TGCD already...it takes a little longer for them to worm their way into the brain...Yeah. My early Katatonia album rankings had me putting Viva Emptiness ahead of Night is the New Day and then after a while it changed and Night Is the New Day is just that little bit better (to me).
You know how I tended to find the "fan-favorites" from past records to be my own favorites as well? Well, that didn't happen with Forsaker. Not bad by any means, but I never truly connected with it. Not their best opener, imo...Noooooo...... OK I'm fine with anyone thinking it's not their "best" opener because all of their openers are awesome and how do you pick just one? :) But wow do I love that song. Maybe being the first one is part of it. But I think the guitars on that song are so cool too. I don't know if you'd call what Anders is doing a "solo" but whatever it is, I like it.
...But then comes The Longest Year...amazing stuff. The quality of the production and arrangements I was mentioning above really comes through in this song, I think. I always felt this tune fits in a hypothetical line of catchier modern Katatonia songs...perhaps starting already with My Twin...but then continuing over the next few albums with The Racing Heart, Lethean, Serein, Winter of Our Passing…). It's all these short, catchy tunes that manage to be so interesting and so unmistakably "Katatonia". This one has a slightly unusual structure, I guess (ABAB?), and the chorus is absolutely phenomenal. Wish they repeated it a few more times, actually :)I wouldn't have thought to group any of those songs together, that's interesting. I think The Longest Year isn't so catchy... but I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I think catchy and non-catchy songs can be equally as good. I just feel like The Longest Year draws you in in a different way.
QuoteYou know how I tended to find the "fan-favorites" from past records to be my own favorites as well? Well, that didn't happen with Forsaker. Not bad by any means, but I never truly connected with it. Not their best opener, imo...Noooooo...... OK I'm fine with anyone thinking it's not their "best" opener because all of their openers are awesome and how do you pick just one? :) But wow do I love that song. Maybe being the first one is part of it. But I think the guitars on that song are so cool too. I don't know if you'd call what Anders is doing a "solo" but whatever it is, I like it.
I wouldn't have thought to group any of those songs together, that's interesting. I think The Longest Year isn't so catchy... but I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I think catchy and non-catchy songs can be equally as good. I just feel like The Longest Year draws you in in a different way.
This discography walkthrough has really cemented how much I like Anders as a textural guitarist (I probably unfairly attribute to him some ideas that might have been Fredrik's or Jonas', but he was doing this long before either of them played guitar in Katatonia).
I believe I think that their recent albums are a little more different from each other than you do, but I may be in the minority on that anyway.
I take great umbrage at The Promise of Deceit not being listed as a favorite track. :)
By the way, what is your musician background/what instrument(s) do you play?
3:20 ish of Forsaker - is one of my favorite Katatonia moments (and live too); I think Anders rules with whatever he's doing there, and I know it's not some super technical advanced playing, but it's cool.
Also Nick is still wrong about Forsaker...
I love the triplet guitar lick at 0:49 into the rim click motif.
Night Is the New Day is the 3rd in a string of perfect/near perfect albums for me. I agree with this one especially being a grower. I remember buying this one with several other things and giving it a quick listen. I remember enjoying it, but pushing it to the side. After several months with a handful of casual of listens, I finally immersed myself into this album, and it really clicked. I think this album, might be their most complete package. Everything about this album works together to set a mood, and a morose atmosphere, starting with the album title. I had mentioned that Tonight's Decision was my favorite cover art, but Night is the New Day is just a notch below as my 2nd favorite.I agree with all of this. And the two covers you mentioned would be my favorites of the albums already covered so far.
The track order feels very well thought out as well, and adds to the whole experience.I've read some interviews that they spend a lot of time on the track order.
The other big piece here is the increased electronics and synths. These soundscapes really contribute to what makes up Katatonia's darkest record, a beautiful darkness. Discouraged Ones is close with it's bleak atmosphere, but in a much different way. It might not be quite as heavy as the last 2 albums, but there are still a several heavy parts on offer.Just giving a +1 to this as well; beautiful darkness indeed.
This album is incredible from start to finish, and Forsaker is another great opener. The Longest Year is another dark masterpiece. Onward Into Battle is another highlight and Daniel shines here as well. Liberation is cool with it's chuggy bounce. Nephilim is quite dark and unsettling and just behind Day and Then the Shade for my favorite track. Inheritance is solemn and beautiful. Departer is such an atmospheric closer.I'm not sure I could pick just one favorite track. I think can go with three maybe - Forsaker, Liberation, and The Promise of Deceit. But then I feel like I also should include Onward into Battle and then another and then another... :)
Everything here just creates such a darkness, and the album flows so well. For me, this is a record to put on with a glass of bourbon and just get lost into it's world. Like I said, it just works so well as a whole, complete package.*Yes.* Except for the bourbon part for me... :)
Some days I want to put this as my number 1, but most days I still hold Viva Emptiness in my top spot. I think VE just edges Night out, but man I'm splitting hairs here. Nostalgia might play a little part in that ranking too. Overall the run of VE - TGCD - Night is an incredible 3 album run that I have at the top of my Katationa album ranking (I'll save my full ranking till the end).It's sounding like my rankings of the next three albums will probably not be the norm (at least not on this forum). :)
Thanks Realm. I've only heard each album once, but I thought that on this album, there's less variety from song to song than on other albums. Not sure if that's actually true but that how it felt.I think that might be true of The Great Cold Distance - that there's less variety among the songs. They probably just won't be your thing, though I definitely do think that these albums need more than one listen. But since this album seems to be the one casual fans tend to like, and is also a fan favorite, I would have chosen this one to be the one for you to listen to a few times. Maybe I'll give a different recommendation depending on your comments on the others; maybe something will surprise me. I wouldn't have guessed you to like The Astonishing, so maybe the album I think you'll like least, you'll like most... (I don't expect that though).
There's just no melody.But while I agree with the less variety comment, this is just not true. There's tons of melody; maybe just not melodies that you like. :)
But since this album seems to be the one casual fans tend to like, and is also a fan favorite, I would have chosen this one to be the one for you to listen to a few times. Maybe I'll give a different recommendation depending on your comments on the others; maybe something will surprise me. I wouldn't have guessed you to like The Astonishing, so maybe the album I think you'll like least, you'll like most... (I don't expect that though).
My Twin
This song finished before I realized it.
My Twin
This song finished before I realized it.
What is it? Is it because you found it completely unmemorable, or you liked it so much it went by in a flash? :biggrin:
I think I started reading something and I drifted off. :lol
Well, I didn't say it was accessible to ME! :lol:lol
It's sounding like my rankings of the next three albums will probably not be the norm (at least not on this forum). :)
Feels generally a tad too downtuned for me.
Everything here just creates such a darkness, and the album flows so well. For me, this is a record to put on with a glass of bourbon and just get lost into it's world. Like I said, it just works so well as a whole, complete package.*Yes.* Except for the bourbon part for me... :)
My listening is mostly album based anyway, but I agree with this. I will occasionally listen to specific tracks or make playlists but most of the time I listen to the whole album, bonus tracks included.QuoteEverything here just creates such a darkness, and the album flows so well. For me, this is a record to put on with a glass of bourbon and just get lost into it's world. Like I said, it just works so well as a whole, complete package.*Yes.* Except for the bourbon part for me... :)
Night is just one of those records for me. It's like Scenes from a Memory, The Downward Spiral, Colors to name a few, that I usually don't just listen to a few tracks from it. If I'm gonna give it a spin, I'm making time to take the whole thing in at home, or I'm going on a 50 minute car ride, or a nice, long walk.
I really need to sit down and think about my top 15 or 20 Katatonia tracks. I think quite a few from DEK would make it. Like I said, the highs on this album are really high. Maybe I'll put out a top 20 along with my full album ranking at the end of this. Maybe we all could...
"Nephilim"...2:53 in it I believe is the first usage of vocalise in Katatonia's catalog rather than normal lyrics.
Dead End Kings is probably their best album for me. I've been listening to both Sanctitude and Dethrowned & Uncrowned a lot this last year.Welcome to the Dead End Kings club with Litho and I. :) The Racing Heart is one of my very favorites as well.
The Racing Heart got to be my favourite Katatonia song.
Since this is an active thread, does this act as the general Katatonia thread as well?
I just want to come here and say I really, really enjoy the new record. I've been listening to the band since The Great Cold Distance and to be quite honest I always find 3-4 tracks to like and then the rest just blurs together for me.
This album is the first time where I enjoy listening from front to back. Getting into this album has finally enabled me to delve into an album like The Fall of Hearts, which previously sounded samey to my ears.
Since Katatonia has a new album that just came out, I'm going to take a little longer than usual to do the next writeup. One because I haven't felt like doing a writeup while listening to a brand new album, and I imagine other fans want to take their time with the new album as well. So this will give TAC and Luke and anyone else who might be lurking more time to catch up. :)
Dead End Kings is probably their best album for me...The Racing Heart got to be my favourite Katatonia song.Welcome to the Dead End Kings club with Litho and I. :) The Racing Heart is one of my very favorites as well.
I feel let down by Leprous not winning the last round. :P
In the meantime, TAC, you never commented on Dead End Kings so you should give it another listen - you've got one of the songs in your roulette - and make some comments. :)
"Filler"? :lol It's fascinating how many people rank DEK so highly here though, most other places it's considered one of the weakest.
The calmness of the vocals for me is one of the strongest selling points. Prog/power vocalists who belt it out at 11 are a dime a dozen, it's much more rare to see more restrained vocals over heavier music.
Yeah but you could have posted about this album 9 months ago...
But seriously, you could blame the delay on me, but we all know it's Litho's fault...
An extra week delay is totally on me though. I might post it sooner, but I think it will be next weekend.
Dammit..snuck in a new one before my next round. :lolVery thoughtful of me, isn't it. :)
Dammit..snuck in a new one before my next round. :lolVery thoughtful of me, isn't it. :)
Hiatus
At the end of 2017, Katatonia announced that they would be going on a hiatus after performing a few shows in 2018 to evaluate the future of the band. That statement didn’t make me feel physically ill…no, not at all…
Wow that's so interesting. I always think The Great Cold Distance if someone were to ask for a heavy Katatonia album. I don't think of The Fall of Hearts as particularly heavy or heavier than Dead End Kings, for example. I still have to listen to Litho's time stamps and maybe I'll keep this reaction in mind too.
Cool!
Jonas rules though. :)
I like Jonas' vocals, so there's that...but I also feel in the most recent two albums (not covered in the thread yet) he's branched out a bit, in terms of vocal lines...? Nothing radically different, but perhaps exploring wider ranges (e.g. Lacquer from City Burials - not that Tim would particularly like that one ;) )
One of us should, you know, take one for the team and send Tim a song from this year's album for the Current Events round in his roulette - they are not banned, since they never score high enough :biggrin:
One of us should, you know, take one for the team and send Tim a song from this year's album for the Current Events round in his roulette - they are not banned, since they never score high enough :biggrin:
Considering we are both still in contention for winning, it's probably going to need to be someone else. :biggrin:
BTW, did you listen to their Judas Priest cover from the last album? It's on some of the bonus versions.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2LbNk4WcQnj30hn5Q0jhzv
BTW, did you listen to their Judas Priest cover from the last album? It's on some of the bonus versions.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2LbNk4WcQnj30hn5Q0jhzv
Hmm..that was pretty decent. I'm always going to have an issue with the vocals, but if the music is just as gloomy, it's a tough take. At least with this cover, and most of this last album, the music had some jump to it that makes them a bit more palatable.
OK this is a good description of why I was surprised TAC thought The Fall of Hearts was so heavy. And he didn't (I don't think) have all that much to say about The Great Cold Distance. Totally not disagreeing with him for liking The Fall of Hearts more though. :)
*Overall this album seems to continue the trend of softening their sound a bit from the peak sonic intensity of The Great Cold Distance (though there are arguments for the first two having a greater intensity in a different way as well, but the late 90s/early 00s albums are generally considered milder by most). The metallic moments are still there, they just gradually seem more infrequent compared to TGCD. And TGCD was pretty inarguably a prog metal album to me, whereas I could certainly see at this point people just calling them some flavor of progressive/art/atmospheric rock with some heavier songs and moments in others.
This was how I felt about Mangini at first. I had no problem with liking the album - I wanted to like A Dramatic Turn of Events and I did (I know some people don't but to me it's so good it's undeniable). But when I saw them live I wanted to maybe not like him so much, or not like the band with him too much. The first couple shows with him were definitely a little disconcerting in that way. But that didn't last too long, fortunately for me.
*Listening to TFoH had a black cloud over it for me, because I knew Liljekvist had left the band, and I wasn't ready to accept a new drummer for them. It felt like the start of a new era that I wasn't mentally prepared for, having just seen them on the previous tour.
*Nevertheless, I listened to it a ton when it came out, probably more than Night Is the New Day and the next one City Burials, hoping to get into it more. I did quite like it, but didn't want to like it in ways, so it was kind of a discombobulating feeling for me.
*One thing that immediately leapt out to me now is how great this album is - I like it now more than I ever have. I'll do my album rankings later, but my feeling is that it could be closer to their golden era (for me '01-'12) than I used to think it was.:metal
It was easier for me with Katatonia than it had been for Dream Theater. I was more concerned by how it would affect the band than how it would affect me. I *was* a little nervous as I said about replacing Daniel Liljekvist, but I was more concerned just that losing members again would be frustrating or disheartening for them and maybe that would affect the band's future. But at that point I was pretty convinced that as long as Jonas and Anders were there, it was all going to be just fine. They didn't miss a beat losing the Norrman brothers. As for which drummer is better - I dunno, probably neither really. I think I do find myself noticing and rewinding to hear stuff with Daniel Moilanen more often though.
Drumming:
*The other is that with the passing of time and more familiarity, I've warmed up a lot to Daniel Moilanen's drumming (he already made my honorable mentions for the top 25 drummers ranking thread we did a few months ago). Even before first hearing TFoH I'd been a pretty big fan of Engel, and heard a bit of his work in Runemagick and The Project Hate MCMXCIX, but from what I could recall it was pretty straight-forward metal drumming and I didn't realize he had the finesse to pull off the more intricate work needed for modern proggier Katatonia. Honestly he's probably a more technically competent drummer than Liljekvist. But it is a bit of a similar situation to Axenrot replacing Lopez in Opeth, where even with both replacements growing on me over time, there's still an ineffable je ne sais quoi and feel to Liljekvist's (and Lopez's) playing that might not ever be overcomeable to me. It's hard to say how much is "objective" and how much is just from both bands being pretty inextricably tied to more formative years of my life.
I also like the dotted 8th note delay under the other guitar melody at 5:18 in "The Night Subscriber".I probably never noticed this before - at least not consciously.
*There seems to be at least one uncredited guest - if you listen to 0:38 in "Shifts" the backing vocal there doesn't sound like anyone in the band. Maybe it's a Silje cameo from the prior album, or an unlisted sample.I always assumed this was a sample, but it's possible it's just an uncredited quick vocal part.
*"Takeover" has one of the more unusual and unique intros they've done, in that it starts out more relatively major and happier than they normally are (though still a bit mysterious because it's in lydian mode there), and gradually gets darker over the first couple minutes.I like the mysterious descriptor. Takeover kind of feels like you're starting an adventure (which of course, you are...).
*"Old Heart Falls" feels like a song that could have been on Dead End Kings, with the tremolo guitar effects, octave leads, ambient swells - it's a bit like a "Racing Heart" sequel.Interesting. I can hear it now... and I certainly love both songs a lot, but they feel really different to me. Different moods maybe.
*"Residual" was my first favorite track on the album. It's difficult to explain why I like it so much, though a lot of it centers around the interaction of the vocal line and the sustained guitar melody in the chorus. I also love that Rhodes riff.OK, so, what's the Rhodes riff? :)
*"Shifts" opens with a similar feeling to "One Year From Now" from Viva Emptiness with the moodiness of the guitar arpeggios and piano melodies. And then the light synth brass at 2:21 foreshadows the opening of "Opaline" from Sky Void of Stars this year. This has to be one of the more relaxing full-band tracks they've done - essentially no distorted guitars in sight, at least from a riffing or traditional soloing perspective. I love the ambiance of all the swirling synth and guitar textures throughout.Yes - it's relaxing, it's poignant, it's kind of light and dark at once, and it's kind of driving in a way - maybe the swirling feels like it's moving you forward a little. If that makes any sense.
*I love the section at 5:01 in "Passer" with the synths and tremolo-picked guitar melody.As someone who knows little about any of this, I was happy I knew exactly what you were referring to here. :)
*"Serac" is the song I've realized that in spite of listening to dozens of times since it came out, I've been underrating it the most. I already mentioned the keyboard moment, but just in general, this is a monster track for them, one of their more epic tunes in recent years, with some killer guitar riffs, and some more conventional soloing in addition to the mellower lower-gain solos I mentioned earlier. The ending feels particularly climatic with the restatement of the more unusual chord changes, plus the higher-range keyboard arpeggios adding a fantastical element. It might be my favorite on the album now, and now also one of my overall favorites of theirs.I'm glad this one has grown on you so much. I feel like it look a little time to become a favorite of mine as well, but not this long. When they played it at ProgPower I was sad it was in place of Residual, but the replacement being Serac made it totally OK.
*A minor technicality - some of the touring editions of TFoH also list "Journey Through Pressure", but maybe Lethean was only counting live tracks from the album itself, and that one's originally from The Great Cold Distance.That's exactly what I was doing, since can hear Journey Through Pressure on the whole The Great Cold Distance live album.
Maybe Jamesman should do it. I feel like TAC participating in this thread is reason why I probably shouldn't. :) Plus he's going to hear the whole album anyway. But, if the band I'm planning to send (which is probably not going to score very well either but that's the way it goes) gets banned between now and then, I might do it.
One of us should, you know, take one for the team and send Tim a song from this year's album for the Current Events round in his roulette - they are not banned, since they never score high enough :biggrin:
Considering we are both still in contention for winning, it's probably going to need to be someone else. :biggrin:
:lol
If it's an upcoming song in this thread, I may not hear it. I'll likely spend my Free Listening between rounds getting a jump on the EPs that I've been sent.
If it's an upcoming song in this thread, I may not hear it. I'll likely spend my Free Listening between rounds getting a jump on the EPs that I've been sent.
Well you're going to hear it eventually - there are two albums to go, and unless you want me to haunt your roulettes for all time, you'll listen to them at some point. ;)
If it's an upcoming song in this thread, I may not hear it. I'll likely spend my Free Listening between rounds getting a jump on the EPs that I've been sent.
Well you're going to hear it eventually - there are two albums to go, and unless you want me to haunt your roulettes for all time, you'll listen to them at some point. ;)
Just two albums left? Including the most recent one?
If it's an upcoming song in this thread, I may not hear it. I'll likely spend my Free Listening between rounds getting a jump on the EPs that I've been sent.
Well you're going to hear it eventually - there are two albums to go, and unless you want me to haunt your roulettes for all time, you'll listen to them at some point. ;)
Just two albums left? Including the most recent one?
They didn't miss a beat losing the Norrman brothers.
OK, so, what's the Rhodes riff? :)
I'm glad this one has grown on you so much. I feel like it look a little time to become a favorite of mine as well, but not this long.
That makes total sense. For me, the core Jonas and Anders, so that probably made it a little easier.They didn't miss a beat losing the Norrman brothers.
I never had the attachment to them that I did to Liljekvist for whatever reason. As I've admitted a number of times in this thread I don't even necessarily know what Anders is playing vs. Fredrik vs. Per vs. Roger vs. Jonas. Maybe if I had seen them live a lot more or rewatched the various live performances more times I would have a better sense of it, but I don't. But for me I've thought of the core of them in the golden era as Jonas, Anders, and Liljekvist arbitrarily, so breaking that trio up was a blow for me for awhile.
Yeah, that topic has come up from time to time, and I think there's probably been at least a couple threads about it. I don't constantly listen to new stuff, so I'm not generally spread too thin. It means there's probably a lot of stuff I miss out on, but I'm OK not knowing what I don't know. :)I'm glad this one has grown on you so much. I feel like it look a little time to become a favorite of mine as well, but not this long.
It's really quite an unusual phenomenon. I've always liked it, but a week or two ago if you'd asked me my favorites on the album I would have mentioned "Residual" and "Takeover". I haven't listened to the bonus tracks quite as much, so "Sistere" went up a level or two in doing these relistens, but "Serac" soaring was rather unexpected. Sometimes songs will take off somewhere between half a dozen and 20 plays for me (part of why I wanted to get more listens in for my roulette and things took a bit longer was getting everything somewhere in that range) - but I'd say usually once I've hit 20 plays or so my feelings are generally fairly solidified (years of distance and discovering other artists and styles inbetween can sometimes shift things over longer stretches of time). So for a song I'd already listened to well over that level to suddenly go up was rather serendipitous.
That used to happen more often when I was younger and had a much, much smaller library of music. It's really a whole separate thread of discussion, but so much more music being available and spreading myself thinner means I less commonly get that many listens in to "lesser" songs on albums to even give it a chance to happen.
Working on the next album, City Burials, and wow do I love this album. I don't usually get much from album reviews, but every so often I come across one and it's like "wow, I can't wait to hear that album, it sounds incredible." (And it may or may not be, but the review is that compelling). I wish I could do something like that for City Burials, but that's just not really my gift I suppose. Nonetheless, I'm sure I'll mention how awesome it is at least a few times.
Yeah, that's the song I really want TAC to hear.
I plan on commenting more, but for now I just wanted to say I, too, LOVE this album. In a way, it rekindled my Katatonia fandom a bit, after it sort of drifted for a few years. More specifically, it made me go back and dig deeper into the Dead End Kings and The Fall of Hearts which - for a variety of reasons - I hadn't paid as much attention to as they deserved when they came out.
As for the album itself, I very much welcomed the return to more concise songwriting. Not that the style overall was a huge departure from the more recent records, but it felt like the songs were a bit more to the point. Purely as a matter of personal taste of what I like/look for in Katatonia's music, I loved that.
Plus, it was such a surreal time when this came out.
More to come but, again, fantastic record.
A few more random thoughts:
- I absolutely love Heart Set to Divide as an opener. The way it, um, opens...with Jonas' vocals and the lush sound, it sets the stage beautifully. I would say, right from the start, it felt like Jonas had grown a ton in terms of his confidence as a singer.
- Behind the Blood always felt to me as a Kataonized version of a Judas Priest song. Just brilliant.
- Lacquer...speaking of vocals...My voice travelling, Soaring bird above your head, The house we lived in, Ridden with disease...who would've thunk we'd hear him sing like that?!
- The Winter of Our Passing: I guess it's the "hit" song of this record. Absolutely loved it from the very beginning. Just maybe wish it were a little longer, really. Feels like the lovechild of Lethean (the song :biggrin:) and Racing Heart.
- Flicker is another big favorite of mine in here. The chorus, in particular, is fantastic. The guitar lick in it has a Viva Emptiness feel to me.
These are good picks for a “gentler” intro…
How about we add:
My Twin
Lethean
Racing Heart
Opaline
Neither of you mentioning Decima or Shifts from The Fall Of Hearts? :loser:
I guess you could call Behind the Blood somewhat kinda related to power metal...These are good picks for a “gentler” intro…
How about we add:
My Twin
Lethean
Racing Heart
Opaline
Yeah, those work too. I was partially trying to tap into soupy's power metal and folk sides, to the extent that Katatonia does them.
Sounds like a plan to me... :)Neither of you mentioning Decima or Shifts from The Fall Of Hearts? :loser:
Well, I could keep adding things all day and just tell him to listen to their entire discography. :D
Neither of you mentioning Decima or Shifts from The Fall Of Hearts? :loser:
Hmm, this is a tricky one. Even after leaving behind the extreme metal of their first few albums, they're still much, much darker and heavier than most of what you seem to like. But give these a go.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3xwFPVlacz7SL1xK2nKuj3?si=c2230ffe3e204e56 (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3xwFPVlacz7SL1xK2nKuj3?si=c2230ffe3e204e56)
"Behind the Blood"
"Omerta"
"The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here"
"Idle Blood"
"Serac"
I was going more for songs that, while accessible, are a little more representative of Katatonia's style as a whole :)
I was going more for songs that, while accessible, are a little more representative of Katatonia's style as a whole :)
Well, although I'd be happy to be surprised, I don't know if their normal style is going to particularly up his alley. Sometimes it's easier to transition them in from particular angles that emphasis certain aspects of their side.
And "Opaline" to me is actually a little unusual for them to me, more straightforward, "dancier", and the horns in the intro are extremely uncommon for their sound.
TAC - you still have this one to do (and only one more after.)
Behind The Blood...This is like an actual song by a decent band.
Speaking of owing people things, I don't think you've sent me an Alice Cooper playlist yet. At some point in the near future I'm going to do some post-roulette updates, and I can make that part of them.
I feel like an idiot. Their cover of "Fighters" from Enter the Hunt is because Krister Linder is the vocalist of that band, who was the guest on "Departer" on Night Is the New Day. Doh! In my defense, that's my least favorite song on NITND.
TAC might commit suicide if we tried to get him to listen to Wisdom of Crowds. :)
Recall that one of Katatonia's first names before settling on "Katatonia", was "Melancholium". Still quite a fitting name.
All kinds of geological metals and chemicals end in "ium", so it would have been fine for a metal band I think.
Also, speaking of The Winter of Our Passing...the drumming, too, is so cool on that one. Moilanen has a way of throwing you off just a bit with the snare hits on the verses...then I love his pattern going into the chorus (when Jonas sings To get higher I have to go so low). The song is not complex at all, and yet there are great little touches everywhere.Listening to the album now with everyone's comments and I really agree with this. Also, I really like towards the beginning with the second, lower volume "I navigate the dark" with the drumming over that. And definitely your last sentence. I think the song really makes and impact.
The production on this record is top notch. Special shout out to the bass on this record. The bass sounds especially solid on City Burials. I love the cover art on this one, and I'd rank it 3rd, behind Tonight's Decision and NITND, as my favorite cover art from the band.I don't really care too much about production, but I have noticed that people seem to like Katatonia's production in general. I read positive comments about it, and almost never see a complaint. It doesn't mean there aren't any, but it's refreshing. It seems as though people spend/spent more time complaining about the production of a new DT or Rush album than they did talking about the songs.
Behind the Blood was clearly the song that I gravitated to first. Roger brings the killer, shreddy leads to this dark banger that has some classic metallic riffing. I love how Heart Set to Divide opens with vocals and eventually the guitars come in with that awesome descending main riff. Lacquer ups the electronics, and has a great vocal from Jonas. This song definitely grew on me over time. "Dreamlike" is a great description for it. Winter of Our Passing definitely has traditional first single feeling to it, and I definitely agree on the Dead End Kings vibes. It's a solid, shorter, and melodic Katationia track. I think City Glaciers is my favorite thing here. I love the atmospheric, post-rock vibe of this track. I especially love how everything drops out, but the keys and ambience for the 2nd part of the 1st verse, until everything comes crashing back in for the chorus. Flicker is another highlight, and I especially love the delay and reverb drenched guitar solo in the back half of the song. Right after that is a neat synth solo as well. These fit the vibe of that song perfectly. I think Lachesis as an interlude that breaks up Flicker and Neon Epitaph works well. Neon Epitaph brings some of that Tool-y groove that they employ, and is another great track. Untrodden closes out the album solidly as well. I love the instrumental part of the 2nd verse. The drums and bass lock in with that clean delay guitar lick on top. Roger shines with a nice melodic lead. Closing of the Sky is another solid bonus track that could make the album proper.It's interesting - for me, Lacquer and Behind the Blood were the reverse experience from yours. Lacquer was the song I loved instantly and Behind the Blood had to grow on me a little.
City Burials Opening Thoughts, Standout Tracks & Singles:For me it was one of the highlights of that time. I remember an interview where they said the label had offered to delay the release (I guess when people assumed it wouldn't be quite as long as it was), and they decided against it and one of the reasons was that people might be looking to their music to help them through. (That's a total paraphrase - I don't really remember the wording). I'm glad they didn't push it back, and I'm glad they realize that their music is like that for some people.
*As usual, I wrote all this without reading the other album-specific comments. I'll read through those later and comment if needed.
*City Burials came out at a really weird time. It was a month into the pandemic, and nothing felt right in the world. Nothing. I had retreated back into the online space (kind of still there, really), and while I gave it a listen and casually liked it, I wasn't in the mood for it at all for a few months.
I just want to quote this because it's spot on - about Heart Set to Divide and in general. The timestamps you listed are such great moments.
*Early in '21, with the pressure of year-end lists over, I was able to relax a bit more and appreciate it more than before. In particular, "Heart Set To Divide", which had already been the standout track for me, became kind of an obsession, and it has become one of my favorite songs of theirs. It has one of their most atmospheric intros (I love those chords ringing out at 1:08), and at 1:40 might be my favorite riff they've ever written. Overall it just sums up so well a lot of the vibe I like about them, how they can so effortlessly synthesize heaviness and subtle complexity, all while oozing ambiance.
*Like Night Is the New Day, this is another album of theirs essentially just written by Jonas. And it still sounds like them. I'm kind of curious at this point how an album by them solely written by Anders would sound. Potentially quite different given earlier projects of his like Diabolical Masquerade.I know I brought up Diabolical Masquerade earlier in the thread, but I just want to reiterate how much I like Death's Design. It's weird but awesome. I think some of the early Katatonia albums would give us an idea of an Anders-only album back then, since he did the majority of the songwriting. But I'm sure Jonas was still coming up with the (majority of the) vocal melodies, so it's not quite the same.
Yes, yes, and yes some more. I think Lacquer is the stand out, but the whole album is full of great vocals. In an interview he mentioned how hard he worked on them and he thought they were better than ever (if I recall correctly) and he hoped the listener agreed. I agree with you on the layering as well; I think Jonas' melodies can be quite unusual/unique and so the first few times I hear a new song or album, I'm probably just focused on that as far as the vocals go. Then as I get more familiar with it, I started noticing the different layers and little details more consciously.
Vocals:
*Lacquer" to me is Jonas' greatest vocal performance he's ever done. 3:19 on "the house we lived in" I think is the highest note I've heard him hit. He is not normally the sort of vocalist you listen to in order to hear an enormous range of notes and techniques - it's more about the vibe, and for me the contrast of how calm his voice is over the heavier riffs, but the melodies and nuance on this song are unusually dexterous for him. I also love the vocal doubling he does in the second verse an octave below the main melody. And then he adds a higher harmony on top of that. Plus, at 2:36 the backing vocals are adding some independent lines as well. I think Jonas' vocal harmonies and layering in general are a quite underrated and underdiscussed part of their sound.
*"Vanishers" is probably the song that has grown on me the most while going through the process of writing this. Prior to Lethean starting this thread it was just another good song of theirs that didn't especially stand out - other than being kind of a sequel to "The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here" from Dead End Kings, which had the duet with Silje Wergeland from The Gathering and Octavia Sperati. That's still the superior song, but this one really has come alive now because I'm more accustomed to guest Anni Bernhard's vocals. I'd never gotten around to checking out her band Full of Keys before, and Lethean managed to sneak them into a round of my roulette. After the round I listened to all their albums, so I now have a much greater appreciation for this song.Trying to sneak Katatonia connections into your roulette was a lot of fun. :) You have now heard way more Full of Keys than me. :) I'm glad it helped with this song though - that was a nice unintended side effect. :)
*There's no credit for it, but I'm wondering if Anni is also doing some of the high harmonies on "City Glaciers" uncredited. Some of them don't sound like Jonas.I think it's him. I don't have any evidence for this, but I think it's all just him except for Vanishers.
*Overall, still to this day, this is possibly my least-listened album of theirs other than Dance of December Souls. Going through this process is definitely going to start evening that disparity out a bit now.Good. :)
*I'll probably wait 'til after I do Sky Void of Stars, but I'm not sure this album is going to budge in its position in their discography for me yet. Part of that is what's not on the album rather than what's on it. Arguably smaller, subtle things, but the lack of acoustic guitar, percussion, and less of Anders' musical input in the writing process might hold it back a bit.Here's where I think you shouldn't focus so much on what's not on the album. Maybe those elements were perfect for other albums, but don't quite fit with what they wanted for this one. But there are “added” things too - the bass being more prominent/sounding better as Bill and you both mentioned. Jonas going the extra mile and then some on the vocals. And the songs are just so so good. It's nice to have it all in their discography.
I didn't need him to improve at all from The Fall of Hearts (or really anything in over a decade). I love his voice and everything he's done with it and I haven't been even thinking about needing him to do anything else. But then he did and the result is fantastic. And I think shows that he's still all in and loves what he's doing. He might not continue to improve as far as hitting even higher notes, and whether he does or doesn't is fine with me. But I feel like he'll be working to give the best performance he can.
*I meant to note that I view "Lacquer" as kind of an equivalent of Opeth's "Hours of Wealth" for me. It's my favorite vocal performance of both of theirs. People would say things like Åkerfeldt keeps improving his vocals album after album, and it's possible on the whole for that to be accurate, but that specific song has never been topped for me. Whereas with Jonas, since "Lacquer" comes relatively later in their career, I'm skeptical that he'll be able to do so given that most vocalists start declining more rapidly at some point, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
One housekeeping note - we glossed over "Wide Awake In Quietus" (a bonus track from The Fall of Hearts) having a guest guitar solo from Greg Mackintosh of Paradise Lost.
Ok, Sky Void of Stars is just about ready, but in the meantime I wanted to go over some thoughts on the update of Viva Emptiness that we missed discussing. We'll get to SVoS in a few days after we see if there's any discussion on this next one.
[snipped but read in detail]
*"Inside the City of Glass" is easily the song that I find benefits the most from the changes on this version. In addition to now having vocals as originally intended and being longer, the mix I think benefits the track, since it's one of their most doomy ones since generally veering a bit away from that style starting in the late 90s. It sounds weightier and more spacious. My only complaint there is that I did kind of enjoy the spooky whispers in the original verse, which were the only vocals on it, and would have preferred if they kept those in, making the verse longer, but now having more of a build to it.
*I suppose some people liked the idea of "Inside the City of Glass" being one of the relatively few instrumental songs Katatonia has done, but again, the original version still exists if you want that.
Ok, Sky Void of Stars is just about ready, but in the meantime I wanted to go over some thoughts on the update of Viva Emptiness that we missed discussing. We'll get to SVoS in a few days after we see if there's any discussion on this next one.
[snipped but read in detail]
*"Inside the City of Glass" is easily the song that I find benefits the most from the changes on this version. In addition to now having vocals as originally intended and being longer, the mix I think benefits the track, since it's one of their most doomy ones since generally veering a bit away from that style starting in the late 90s. It sounds weightier and more spacious. My only complaint there is that I did kind of enjoy the spooky whispers in the original verse, which were the only vocals on it, and would have preferred if they kept those in, making the verse longer, but now having more of a build to it.
*I suppose some people liked the idea of "Inside the City of Glass" being one of the relatively few instrumental songs Katatonia has done, but again, the original version still exists if you want that.
Roger continues to be the perfect counterpart to Anders that I didn't even realize I needed. His style is more technical and with dashes of blues/shred that I wouldn't have expected to work with their sound, but somehow fits in perfectly.I couldn't agree with this more. And I thought the same; I was skeptical and wasn't sure if I wanted it in songs like Passer, but I quickly changed my mind. It doesn't detract from their sound, it blends into it, it fits, and it adds another dimension that sounds like it's always been there.
*"Colossal Shade" feels like it would have fit just as well/ever better? on City Burials. And the section at 2:29 reminds me of another song or riff of theirs, but it's completely escaping me which one it might be.I'm not sure if it is. Nothing jumps out, so maybe it's just that it's so them that it feels familiar.
*People sometimes complain about "Opaline"'s chorus being essentially two notes, but I consider it a testament to their creativity how they can milk so much out of them. "Forsaker" for Night Is the New Day immediately comes to mind as another song with a note-minimalistic melody that is highly effective in spite of it. The layers of production, instrument orchestration of parts, rhythmic variety, and mixing on "Opaline" keep evolving so it's never the same for very long. The backing vocals also subtly shift throughout the song to give the melody a different feel. If you listen closely at the repeat at 4:06 you can hear a whole series of countermelodies going on in the backing vocals emphasizing different harmonies, and then of course the melody variation ending the song. I'm kind of astounded at the minutiae I still pick up on in what is a relatively simple song, possibly 100+ listens in at this point.If people think that (bolded), they're silly. :) Also, Forsaker, as I've said before, is one of my favorites, and that melody is so so so good. I remember the first time I really paid attention to the song and I was mesmerized and the last thing I was thinking about was how many notes it had. I'm quoting the rest of the paragraph just cuz. I agree and everyone in this thread should go back and listen if they haven't already. :)
*I really love how effortlessly they transition between heavy and mellower moments, arguably better than say, Opeth does. For example, the ascending chromatic riff at 2:46 in "No Beacon To Illuminate Our Fall" reminds me a bit of a heavier version Alice In Chains' "Them Bones", with the Slayer-esque whammy dive bombs on top of it and Moilanen gradually increasing the subdivisions of the bass drum hits to a frenzy (also a bit like Tool's "The Grudge"). But then it seamlessly segues into a delightful mellower section with the electric piano and pseudo-jazzy clean guitar octave lines.I think they're better at this than anyone.
*The main troubling issue is that Anders hasn't been touring with them for Sky Void of Stars. He stopped in early '23 before the album came out. No one seems to have any solid information why, just that he's dealing with some family issues. Often they're just playing with Roger and backing tracks for additional guitar parts, though sometimes Per Eriksson (who played on Dead End Kings) fills in. Some are saying some of Moilanen's parts are also being piped in on the backing tracks.I think it could be anything since they aren't saying anything. It could be that he feels able to do Bloodbath because it's not that many shows, allowing him to play some but be mostly at home. That doesn't explain why Jonas isn't doing the Bloodbath shows though, unless they just decided to divide and conquer. I hope it's not a rift between them, but of course I also hope that Anders or one of his family members isn't ill or something. It's impossible to know so I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed.
*The weird thing is that Anders has done some shows with Bloodbath in the past year, but not Katatonia. And Jonas is no longer touring with Bloodbath. There is all kinds of speculation online, but who knows what's really going on. There are some US dates for Katatonia and Bloodbath just a few days apart coming up in May, which would be the best shot at more interesting developments.
*They've done a number of surprise shows where because some venues are requiring at least three bands to be on the bill, Katatonia has played the entirety of Dead End Kings under the name "Concrete Skies" as an opening act for GosT, and then closing with their normal show.As far as I know, they only did this at one show, unless it was done after the US tour. But I don't think they've had many shows since then.