 |
At last, movement on Katatonia’s front! After innumerable delays — their new record was on my most anticipated list last year — the band is actually recording. The first three studio updates are up at the band’s MySpace blog. Katatonia is one of the few bands whose mere name can give me chills. 2003’s Viva Emptiness, which I discovered through aversionline.com, changed my life. It showed me how bleak and beautiful metal could be. I used to listen to it before going to sleep. It gave me Kafka-esque visions of lost souls dotting grayscale cities. Here is “A Premonition” from Viva Emptiness.
My main takeaway from these studio diaries is more cheery. I love gear talk — brands of drum heads, descriptions of signal chains, even the materials of guitar picks. At any given time, certain brands are in vogue in metal. In the past few years, Caparison guitars and Krank and Engl amps have become popular. Now the new “it” brands seem to be Polish — Mayones guitars and Laboga amps. Each has a formidable roster of endorsees. Katatonia use both brands now. Not that it really matters. The music is what’s important. But many of the band’s fans are probably musicians who enjoy mechanical minutiae. At the heart of every true metalhead is a colossal nerd.
Katatonia’s new album is due out in October on Peaceville.
Katatonia have had a huge influence on modern metal. It's interesting to trace all sorts of horribleness to 1998's "Discouraged Ones". I guess them and Opeth circa "My Arms…" have set the tone for all this melancholic alterna-metal that we've been largely subjected to in the last 10 years. Tiamat's "Wildhoney" too, I would guess. Regardless of the quality of these releases, it's an interesting note when a few records spawn a genre and effectively broaden the palette of Heavy Metal and all the imitators are so drastically worse than the originators because they just use the new color and forget about all the others.
The same sorta happened with progressive metal and the influential works of Queensryche, Fates Warning and *sigh* Dream Theater.
It amazes me that a record such as "Viva Emptiness" could change your life as I have a suspicion it's probably not extremely liked even by the band members that recorded it, but hey, sometimes a record at the right time is a very real catalyst.
Viva Emptiness is still my favorite Katatonia album. I know others disagree (a lot), but it was their first album that I really got into. Can't wait for this album and can't wait for them to tour the states again.
If you think you're an intelligent metal fan and don't at least respect Katatonia (even if you don't like them), you're an idiot.
One of the greatest bands to have ever graced the earth…
great news! thank you!
Brave Murder Day will always be my Number 1 album, and the best music I've ever heard in my entire life, at the time it was a mix of late teenager turmoil and just plain "getting into good music" but I can definitely say that BMD and to a lesser degree Sounds of Decay changed my life, granted I love and own all of Katatonia's albums but those 2 are their best in my opinion. It's funny you mention both Discouraged Ones and MYAH both bands have always been linked for obvious reasons and those 2 albums signify huge changes in them. Katatonia for their actual sound and moving from the "Doom" tag and growing in all subsequent albums and for Opeth at least for me it was their last AMAZING album (can't beat the last word of each song being the title of the next track).
Awesome news!!! It's been too long since The Great Cold Distance. I can't wait to hear what comes next.
I think Last Fair Deal Gone Down, regardless of what genre it fits into, is one of the best albums of this decade. There's just something so on point about the melodies and the emotions they contain, and the commitment to crafting great songs around them.
It's amazing that the vocalist and the guitar player are both in Bloodbath. That's some talent to shift from total heaviness to Katatonia.
I'm not too enthusiastic about a new one, as I think both Viva Emptiness and The Great Cold Distance were fundamentally rehashes of Last Fair Deal Gone Down. And LFDGD is obviously the best, not least for the great title!
More seriously, I think the stylistic niche that Katatonia have settled into is too small for them to keep making sufficiently differentiated albums within. So I suppose I would rather see them try something different this time around, than another solid slab of what they have been doing…
By the way, Cosmo, the last sentence of this post has become my favorite quote, ever.
"At the heart of every true metalhead is a colossal nerd."
You've hit upon a universal truth, my friend.