lunes, 4 de mayo de 2020

Katatonia "Sounds Of Decay" Avantgarde Music (1997)




There isn’t much to say about this EP. Like Brave Murder Day it stands somewhere between the death/doom metal of Katatonia’s earlier works and the depressive rock of Discouraged Ones and its followers. It actually seems that these three six-minutes-calibrated tracks are remains from the Brave Murder Day sessions, even if I don’t know to what extent this is true. On a sidenote it is puzzling that, while this EP represents the last step of this band before definitely falling into mellow so-called suicide rock, there are no clean vocals on it, while there were a decent amount of these on Brave Murder Day.



The first song Nowhere is a slow, dark track which can stand the comparison with almost anything on Brave Murder Day. A well-chosen, almost catchy opening doom riff, Mikael Akerfeldt’s harsh vocals sounding more lively than usual, and a welcomed semi-acoustic break make it a fully enjoyable track. The drumming itself sounds a tad more aggressive and more inspired than on the previous album, looking further than the standard rock beat Katatonia will later use. And paradoxically this track ends up sounding far closer to actual death/doom metal than to the melodeath vibe of BMD, what isn’t a bad thing.



The two other tracks are by contrast pretty much insignificant. At Last is not very different from Discouraged Ones rock songs, saved that Akerfeldt’s harsh vocals have been stuck on it, the result being a rather flat and monotonous piece of work. Inside the Fall is a patchwork of mediocre rock parts and slower doom moments exhibiting a very repetitive and annoying lead guitar, a forgettable song even if it slightly redeems itself at the end. I’ll eventually only remember the title – because it embodies THE FALL of Katatonia.

One (very) good song and two fillers which combine to make an eventually unnoticeable EP. Goodbye, Katatonia.





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