Mantraschism
Skáld
I'm excited about this, but also a bit apprehensive. There are two things that brought down the last two Katatonia albums, in my opinion, and those are the vocal melodies and the lyrics. Jonas seems to have boxed himself in vocally in the last few years. While his voice and performance are still very good, I've found his melodies to be far less expressive than anything on 'Tonight's Decision', 'Last Fair Deal Gone Down', 'Viva Emptiness', and even 'Discouraged Ones'. I'd love to hear him 'stretch out' as he used to do. Lyrically, I'm not sure what's going on. I don't even like to criticize them, because I'm sure he knows exactly what he wants to say and is saying it, but they rather elude me. I mean, a song like 'Strained', 'Chrome', or 'Saw You Drown' has such moving lyrics, really something I can derive personal meaning from. On 'The Great Cold Distance' and 'Night Is the New Day' he's been a lot more sparse and vague, and not in a way I find effective.
That looks like a lot of complaining, I know, but those are really my only two complaints. Every album they've ever done has either been amazing to me in its entirety, or at least contained songs that are special to me. So I'll wrap this up by saying that I'm really looking forward to this album, and don't expect it to leave frequent rotation for quite a while when it's released. =]
That looks like a lot of complaining, I know, but those are really my only two complaints. Every album they've ever done has either been amazing to me in its entirety, or at least contained songs that are special to me. So I'll wrap this up by saying that I'm really looking forward to this album, and don't expect it to leave frequent rotation for quite a while when it's released. =]