*I wrote this without reading anything Lethean or anyone else wrote in the thread, so it'll interesting to see if there are any interesting convergences.
*I think this is where their sound starts getting a bit polarizing for some people who were onboard the last few releases (the ones who only like the first couple are often unreachable). It's probably the least dramatic change in sounds between albums they've had yet. It's a bit slower and has fewer pummelling parts, the keyboard/electronics presence has been expanded a bit more, with a lusher feel to everything, but the general production style and feel has been solidified further, and this is more or less "their sound" going forward, with subtle variations. People who insist on bands reinventing themselves every single album (I'm not one of those) will probably feel they've "become stagnant".
*But for me the formula they've discovered by this point is near perfection, and changing too much would be risky. I don't need them to be innovative when they've arrived at a sound this exceptional. I also think that there is probably a divide between people who see this album as a prototype for the next one, and those who feel this is the original vision and Dead End Kings is the leftovers, but you'll have to evaluate for yourselves when we get there.
*It's interesting that this is the audition for Jonas as "one-man-Katatonia", having written a lot of the album himself, and even having played more of the guitar parts than before. Of course this will be revisited again on the most recent and the future Katatonia albums as well. Anders and Jonas make a great songwriting team, clearly, but it's obvious that they've both internalized their unique style quite well by this point, that they can sound this cohesive regardless of who is the primary writer.
*Frank Default's presence on keyboards as a "sixth Beatle" addition is probably the overall most significant change in the vibe of this album compared to earlier ones. Apparently some of the online credit info is incomplete, because Frank was not listed as working with them before this album,, but in some interviews the band members state that he worked on the TGCD B-sides, specifically mentioning "Code Against the Code". I wouldn't be surprised about "Unfurl" either, as the Fender Rhodes piano is one of his signature sounds, and there's a bit of it in there.
*But as an example of how they're incorporating more engaging background ambiance, I love all the soundscapey textures around 3:45 of "Forsaker". Even simple pads like in the background of the first verse of "Liberation" are so effective. Songs like "The Longest Year" have more overt synthetic elements driving them, such as the first minute of it. A lot of Frank's work at this point is quite subtle, you don't really notice it if you're casually listening, but the music would definitely feel less rich without it. A bit more overt example is one such as 3:12 in "Inheritance", where Frank's tickling of the tines adds an element they didn't have previously. Or a little after 3:00 in "New Night".
*One other new element that this album brings is this beautiful low-gain lead tone that they'll continue to refine going forward, which sounds sublime for short melodies and solos. A great example is the phrasing at 2:07 in "Forsaker". I wish there was a bit more vibrato on the end of the held notes, but otherwise it's an immaculate sound. Around when this album came out I had developed this dichotomy where the guitar tones I liked were either super-distorted metal ones, or acoustic guitar ones - I wasn't as into clean or mildly distorted electric textures. This album was part of what turned my opinion around, and now there are timbres I enjoy all over the spectrum of saturation. 1:04 of "Inheritance" has another similar solo, though it has a dab of modulation on it as well, plus a short E-bow bit at 1:21. The lead returns again at 3:54, but now octave-doubled.
*Some of my favorite Liljekvist moments are the fills in "Forsaker" at 1:31, 2:05 in "Idle Blood", 1:01 in "Onward Into Battle", 3:01 in "Liberation", and the offbeat China at 3:45 of "The Longest Year" and 3:05 of "Liberation". Honestly my favorite bit might be the passage starting at 2:34 in "Liberation", with the snare ghost notes and all of the splash, China, and open hi-hat accents in unexpected places. For a flashier one, I love the sextuplet fill at 3:46 on the same song and how it ends gracefully on the ride bell.
*Back to those offbeat accents again, Daniel makes a whole style out of them on "Onward Into Battle". They're on a slightly open hat to the center-left in the intro and second verse, a more open hat to the center-right in the choruses, and by the final chorus at 2:48 they've moved to the ride to the center-left. To make things even more fun, they're back again on the intro to "New Night", but now they contrast the staccato guitar/kick, giving a polymetric feel, and inching them slowly towards a more modern prog sound.
*I don't know how Jonas keeps getting away with this, but he really is the master of simple but memorable melodies. For example, the "Forsaker" chorus is basically just three notes (and half the time is spent on just one of them), and yet it's impossibly catchy. His backing vocals keep improving, and I think he hits his highest backing notes yet around 1:31 in "Idle Blood".
*Speaking of "Idle Blood", it is one of the most Opethian songs they've done, with the acoustics, Jonas' vocal delivery, it could easily have fit on something like Damnation. The descending chromatic section at 3:06 on it might be the most ravishing portion of the album, like the best of mellow Katatonia and Opeth synthesized.
*Mattias has some really neat basslines on this album, like on "Idle Blood", or possibly my favorite, 0:48 in "Onward Into Battle" and how that synchronizes with Daniel's kick.
*I love the clean guitar part at 0:53 on "Liberation", another simple but effective pattern. 2:45 in that song is another variation of the signature Nystrom lick, I love the symmetry of that scale with two separate half-step and three-half-step sequences like at 3:01. 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). The tremolo guitar effect throughout "Onward Into Battle" is such a great sound, for example.
*"The Promise of Deceit" is one of their more unique songs so far, and maybe I should have included it in that list I made a few months ago of 10-20 songs or so that demonstrate Katatonia's range. It's reminiscent of some Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode material in this era with the grinding and distorted electronics in the background. I'm not even sure I made this realization until relatively recently, despite listening to a lot of those artists. It's one of the songs that took the longest to grow on me and I listened to it much less than the others for a long time. It seemed overly simple, but I've come to appreciate it much more over time. 0:36 in it reuses the seesawing rhythmic pattern from 0:53 in "Liberation" for the guitar motif, just with the 3rd and 2nd degrees of the scale rather than 5th and 4th, but in a different key. And then the bonus track "Sold Heart" is similar again with another minor third or second to root seesawing pattern around 2:39.
"Nephilim" brings the doom element again, and is a tribute to Fields of the Nephilim. 2:53 in it I believe is the first usage of vocalise in Katatonia's catalog rather than normal lyrics. It sounds like it's being doubled an octave up by an uncredited guest female vocalist, but I can't seem to find any information about it online. It doesn't sound like any of the other backing vocals they've had to this point.
*The more I think about it, this album sets up the next even better than I realized. For example, jumping ahead slightly, the ending of "Onward Into Battle" would make a great transition into "The Racing Heart" on the next album. And the mellower parts of "Nephilim" also hint at a vibe that I feel that "The Racing Heart" even more fully actualizes.
*Weirdly, each of these songs stands out individually to me more than TGCD's or VE's, which even as many times as I've heard them, blend together a bit, but I don't like this album quite as much as a whole as TGCD or VE. Part of the difference in individuality of songs might be that they're experimenting with more keys again (as in groupings of notes, not synthesizers) - the vast majority of VE and TGCD were in just three keys, while this album contains substantial portions in at least seven.
*"Departer" has their first guest vocalist (Krister Linder) since BMD, but unfortunately it's probably my least favorite song on the album, or that Katatonia has done in quite a few albums.
*"Day and Then the Shade" has a really weird music video. I'm not sure how it was even greenlit, it's like a student art project more than an official video. All I can figure is that the label was trying to fit in with the imagery of the time from horror films and how every symphonic metal band seemed to have vocalists wearing those sort of outfits. Or it may have been a play to try and capture more of the resurgent goth crowd, who notoriously don't like being conflated with metal even though there's often a lot of fanbase and aesthetic crossover.
*The Frank Default remix of "Day & Then The Shade" is great, and kind of reminiscent of a lot of the electronic music I was really into at the time this came out.
"Ashen" continues on with the grand Katatonia tradition of bonus cuts being just as good if not better than album selections. It's one of their richer songs rhythmically as well. I love the triplet guitar lick at 0:49 into the rim click motif. The chorus has a variation on the rhythmic pattern from the intro of "New Night". The half-speed triplet hits in the chorus effectively juxtapose the longer sustained notes of the lead guitar part there as well, which the "New Night" chorus also did, but more subtly.
Favorite songs: "Forsaker", "Idle Blood", "Onward Into Battle", "Ashen", "The Longest Year", "Liberation", "Nephilim", "New Night", "Day & Then the Shade (Frank Default remix)", "Inheritance"...so, almost all of them? Yes.
Topic: Katatonia Discography Discussion: Sky Void of Stars (2023) (Read 23692 times)