KATATONIA (SWE)

Katatonia is a Swedish metal band with a particular knack for making slightly detached but sincere music about misery and melancholy. No wonder, then, that the band has got so many fans from Finland, a country not exactly renowned for its happy, easy-going population.

Katatonia began its career with dramatic dark/black metal in 1993, when they released their first album Dance of December. Although the musical heritage of Paradise Lost, and particularly their album Gothic, was clearly present on the album, the lengthy, intensive songs still were something new and innovative both musically and emotionally. They clearly did not belong to the death/doom metal boom of the era, but were at the same time too romantic and slow for being a part of the black metal trend either.

After five years, with the release of Discouraged Ones (1998), Katatonia had to re-estimate drastically their career and musical direction. Vocalist Jonas Renkse found himself both incapable and unwilling to continue torturing his singing voice in the extreme manner he did before, so he started to sing in a cold, clean, slightly punkish voice. Moreover, the songs were now simplier, even too pop, said the puritanists; but on the other hand, the band had always been too individual for the orthodox anyway.

Katatonia's latest release, The Great Cold Distance, is again cold but cutting like a surgeon's knife straight from the icebox. Only a band with an impeccable sense of style could combine such intensive riffs with so much beauty and serenity. Onstage, Katatonia is not exactly the greatest party act of all time, but it takes either a very thick skin or a very lame heart to find this heart-wrenching melancholy combined with unpretentious catchiness uninteresting. Every feast needs a moment dedicated for some quietness and soul-searching: so why not spend yours with Katatonia by your side?

www.katatonia.com

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