CoNtrivedNiHilism

Yeah, I saw the Katatonia thread from back in 2010. But I don't want to use that thread, I want to use this one. Maybe delete the other one, so there's just this one.

I got in to Katatonia back in 2005, just before their album The Great Cold Distance was released. They had their video for My Twin off of that album play on Headbangers Ball, I believe it was. And I remember thinking that they had a bit of TOOL vibe, with a heavy Opeth influence; dark, heavy, melodic, brooding, the song had a lot of different things to it that I found appealing. I was at what is called Job Core when I discovered the band. So when the weekend came, I went down to Portland, Oregon to one of the many malls there, located a record store, found the album and bought it. Back then I was still using a walkman, or portable cd player. The first track from that album was Leaders, a heavy opener and it caught my attention pretty quickly. I really thought that their singer Jonas Renkse had a very unique voice, and his vocal deliver was soft yet really demanding, it held your attention with how interesting his vocal delivery sounded to me. At this point, I only knew who the band was from their song My Twin, so I knew nothing of their background or if they'd always sounded that way their entire career. The overall tone of The Great Cold Distance was just that, cold, not literally but figuratively, the atmosphere or tone of the record was just really something that I felt was a perfect record to listen to during the Winter season, very fitting. The song that has always stood out most from that record, is In The White. It's the peak moment off of the album and the best song from it, without question. The arrangement the song has is perfection, or maybe I don't see it sounding any other way. I really thought it had Jonas' strongest vocal performance from the album. The Great Cold Distance is still one of my favorite albums, never tire of it.

So, anyway. Once I left Job Core. I took it upon myself to familiarize myself with the rest of this unique, and interesting band I had discovered. I wanted to know more about them. I started with the first material they released, Dance Of December Souls, but technically there was another before it, an EP called Jhva Elohim Meth...The Revival. Upon hearing Dance Of December Souls, and hearing how differently Jonas sang, or rather growled. I noticed that the bands sound was actually a lot different in contrast to The Great Cold Distance; not surprising, bands change. I still really liked what I was hearing, which for me at the time was not common, as I was not fond of growled vocals or bands that only had vocalist growled or screaming through entire albums, not clean vocals. Brave Murder Day was the next album I listened to from them, and it was where Jonas started doing clean vocals, at least at the time I had thought was when he switched it up due to issues with his vocal chords. A cool little fact that made Katatonia even more epic, was how Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth did the harsh growled vocals on this album. I was like, holy hell, Mikael is a beast! I love Opeth and him doing stuff in Katatonia, was something I found really cool. Brave Murder Day is easily one of Katatonia' strongest albums, just so that is known...

There were EP's between Brave Murder Day and their next album, Discouraged Ones. I listened to them and liked them. Discouraged Ones was nothing short of another solid album from Katatonia, and also where they were adjusting their sound more around Jonas and his transitioning to clean vocals only. It was also the last album to have Jonas doing all the drums as well. A very dark album, but so, so good.

Well, I don't want to have this OP be a damn novel. To summarize. I think Katatonia are one of the strongest bands out of Sweden. I think they stand toe to toe with Opeth in some ways, and in some cases, Katatonia has released stronger albums, too...maybe. I think Katatonia have grown in to a band that is nothing short of greatness. I would kill to attend an Opeth/Katatonia tour. That'd be one damn good show.

Thoughts, everyone?

And, should I post videos for those not familiar with this great band?