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Katatonia: Last fair deal gone down

08/02/11 || Altmer

The strangest thing about this album is how it sounds. This may come as a surprise to some people, because Katatonia are definitely a unique band with their own stamp, view on music, life, and gloominess, but still it’s a strange sound nonetheless. For them, at least. The last three albums (from “Viva emptiness” through to “Night is the new day”) all featured substantially heavier guitar tones. The core of the music was still the same before that, but the guitars on this, and the two preceding albums do not have the same crunch to them. And that, in Katatonia language, represents a world of nuance.

Instead of the occasional “riff-bashed-in-your-face”, they concern themselves here more with what you could call “mood-setting instrumentation”. Electronics feature here and there, like on the beautiful “We Must Bury You”, but most of the tones here are of melodic, slow guitar leads and a sharp, tearing guitar sound that isn’t thick but slices through the mood like sharpened knives through butter. Jonas Renkse sings like he’s inhaled an overdose of painkillers, in a drowsy, slow, meandering tone of voice that sounds like he’s almost, but not completely, drowned and asleep at the same time.

It works, though. Most bands of this ilk choose the slow and low and stomping, to create oppression – see that as a necromancer who is forcing undead minions to rise and march slowly like zombies. It’s hardly subtle, but it works – it gives you the feeling of the iron weight of life resting on your puny back. Katatonia do give a few heavy riffs airtime, but on this album it’s melodic, nuanced and subtle – leading to a comparison with poison. A bang while it’s injected into your veins, and then slowly coursing around your body as you’re struggling and go limp. It’s the nasty, encroaching depression, the one you don’t notice till it sets its teeth in you.

As it stands, though: this music is sadder than fifty goth chicks at a basement party lighting candles for their deceased boyfriends’ remembrance when they became zombies. There is no “life” in this music in the sense that it will inspire you with will to live, unless you are one of those people that is severely affected by “but I don’t want to be as sad as Billy McGee who drowned himself in a river and left his wife, 5 kids, and 3 cats no money and a leaky house”. The only emotion in this is the channeling of everything that’s dead. If this album were a season, it would be midwinter in a Scandinavian forest. If this album were a colour, it would be the stone pale white of dead faces. If you can’t deal with the weepy side of life, this album is not for you.

This album is all about tones, emotions, and atmosphere. If you came for shredding, or brutality, or anything of the sort, you will not find it here. The band are plenty skilled with their chosen tools, but they use them simply as vehicles for a sound they create: they are not ends to themselves. Here, riffs form a palette of the song. Songs are not written around a riff. And you can tell they aren’t. The distinguishing feature is, here, always, the drone and croon of Jonas’ vocals.

If you ever wanted to buy an album because you were sad, you would have to buy this album. Yesterday. This is one of Katatonia’s many masterpieces and a jewel for music.

Recommendation: Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Information
Released: 2001
Label: Peaceville Records
Website: www.katatonia.com
Band
Jonas Renkse: vocals
Anders Nystrom: guitars
Fredrik Norrman: guitars
Mattias Norrman: bass
Daniel Liljekvist: drums

Tracklist
01. Dispossession
02. Chrome
03. We Must Bury You
04. Teargas
05. I Transpire
06. Tonight’s Music
07. Clean Today
08. The Future of Speech
09. Passing Bird
10. Sweet Nurse
11. Don’t Tell a Soul

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