Describing Katatonia

[Jasonic]

Lots of people ask me what Katatonia sound like when I tell them that I am into the band.

Lots of my friends are power metal junkies (not that there is anything wrong with that, I can not deny my love for Helloween HammerFall, Iced Earth, etc), and not too familiar with death, doom, etc.

Tell me if you think this is fair.
My one line description for Katatonia is:
WHAT THE CURE WOULD SOUND LIKE IF THEY PLAYED METAL

 

[Hobo]

they sound like good music, only better.

i say melancolic rock.

 

[Jinn]

Dark Rock but a metal band at heart.

 

[Jasonic]

Interesting. So 2 of you already would call them "rock" before "metal".
I listen to all kinds of music, so it never bothered me if I liked a band that some may or may not consider metal.

 

[Hobo]

the simple reason to not say metal is that everyone thinks of either Iron maiden or canibal corpse.
both of those are ofcourse good bands, but they dont sound like katatonia.

 

[doom_death]

Katatonia sounds like....I don't know...like you are dead...and enjoying this shape... Nice, cold, depresive....Beautiful...And for me: Depresive hard-rock...but you can feel it that they were once before a brutal metal band...

Cheers

 

[Deliverance6]

Im going to make an attempt at describing Katatonia......but it wont do them justice....

I would have to say that they play music I can relate to on a personal level.....when I am enraged....depressed....feeling alone.....isolated........that goes for most of their music......and then some songs hit me so hard that they make me feel a positive vibe.....I dont know if it is just because of the fact that I like the song soooo much........or if they had a positive vibe when they wrote it.....but in the end I vicariously live out much of my unhappiness through Katatonia.....and that has literaly kept me alive more than once....


Reece

 

[four_numbers]

and then some songs hit me so hard that they make me feel a positive vibe

excellently put.

its nice when your feeling down to know that there are people (in this case the music of a band) who you can relate to and vise versa, katatonia do that for me, i'd perhaps be inclined to liken katatonia's music to an old friend i would turn to for comfort.

As for the sound.....dark poignancy.....much of katatonia's music is incredibly poignant in its most genuine sense, not many artists can achieve that, many dont even bother trying.

 

[the_joy_of_grief]

I'd say Shoegazer Metal, at least for the 1996/97 era-material.

When describing the sound of their last two albums I usually end up refering to groups like Tool and A Perfect Circle. That always rings a bell.