Katatonia's Great Distance

Soil’s Song (live) from The Great Cold Distance

In the shifting sands of popular music, many bands struggle to stay true to their original visions. It’s not enough just to hang on and keep playing the same songs year after year. I have mixed feelings about bands that fall back on an album or two in their history. Sure, it may be their best (or even one of their all-time best), but progression is what drives to us new places. I think that extending beyond what’s been tried leads to the longevity of a band and affirms the relevance of a musical genre.

This year the Swedish group Katatonia is celebrating their 20^th year of dark, intense metal music. They belong to a long line of metal kings from northern Europe that has persisted throughout the varied rock and metal trends of the past 10-20 years. Pushing the boundaries of sound, vocals, and technical prowess, bands like Opeth, In Flames, Amorphis, Soilwork, and Katatonia consistently deliver killer metal. And they say relationships never last.

Katatonia’s brand of death metal doesn’t always jump up and kick your face in. Instead, their dark, brooding sound slithers up beside you and drags you deep into the darkness. Jonas Renkse’s clean vocals float on an undulating sea of driving guitars and crushing drumbeats. Their sound bristles with passion and a palpable tension.

All the vocals are clean and that is a bit of a departure from the traditional death metal growl. But that shouldn’t be a surprise in a genre which is actually very difficult to classify. I suppose you could label Katatonia as death metal or doom metal or maybe post-alternative-melodic-death metalcore -- I’d rather not. Personally, I don’t care about defining their sound. Instead I’m drawn in by the thick guitars and Renkse’s emotional vocal delivery. I own their two most recent albums: The Great Cold Distance (which I mentioned in an earlier blog post [Winter’s Chill]) and Night Is The New Day. Both CDs deliver on Katatonia’s dark and heavy style. There are some nice surprises, like the laid-back groove of Idle Blood or thunderous stroll of Leaders. I picked out a couple other stand-out songs for the videos this week, too. The first is a live version Soil’s Song, showing how well they can achieve their studio sound out on the road. The second, the moody and dramatic July, is also from The Great Cold Distance.

July from The Great Cold Distance

Happy birthday, Katatonia! This is rock. This is life. What are you listening to?