BRAVE MURDER DAY

On their third album, Katatonia didn't leave any stone unturned despite staying largely within the same atmospheric feeling. Slight change was in the loss of epiqueness, romantism despite the morbid, depressive and heavy feeling kept in tact. One of the greatest decisions made was inviting Opeth's mastermind to contribute vocals to cut the most brutal album vocally. The second great decision was to how two guitars are combined, creating heavy but also mournful feeling. Guitar are masterful and essential in creating the level of bleakness on this record. Two points of criticism, non-essential ones to me: intentionally simple 4/4 beat drumming on the first three heavy tracks. Directly linked to this is the level of repetition which is unlucky from the music perspective but I can understand it for that kind of mood - doom metal bands often use slow repetitive patterns, the same goes for post- rock. I divide the album into three track categories - straightforward gothic/death represented by the first and second track. "Day" is an excellent light weight 90's alternative rock track, fragile yet well constructed. Warmer than anything else on the album, obviously. The third, most voluminous category are tracks 4-6. "Rainroom" starts as a straightforward gotic number but turns into a more slow doom number. The deceivingly mellow repetitive part is alternated by a death/doom ominous motive which then replaced by a straightforward chilling death metal. "12" is a fantastic doom number with great guitar tandem riffing on a different octave. The slow death metal quite Opeth- like motive follows and then very quiet section with clean guitar comes. Another great doom metal riff kicks in before a mellow motive repetition. What comes out of the blue is the last very powerful and evil misanthropic doom riff greatly propelled by the deamonic Akerfeldt to the deepest depths of misery. Astonishing atmospheric moment. "Endtime" has a similar structure to "12" just that it starts with what is the final section of the previous track - quiet instrumental guitar intro which then develops into a similarly sounding doom moment. The melody is simple yet devastating. Vocals are brutal and seem to be duplicated in their loudest part "Here is my darkness". This is Katatonia at their most influential stage setting the scene for further doom/death metal acts to follow. Katatonia would never leave the feeling of sadness yet this was their last matching to brutality. I recommend acquiring this album with the EP "Sounds of decay" which contains 3 similarly designed tracks with Akerfeldt on vocals.

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