Katatonia
– The
Great Cold Distance
(Peaceville
Records, 2006)
Buy
the album here
On
the way to Tower Records in Shibuya in 2006 there was a small, and I
assume independent, music shop. Unlike the amazingly durable Tower
Records which still exists, I also assume that the shop has long
since closed, but on that sunny early summer day over 10 years ago
they performed their greatest moment of capitalist charity. They
were selling off CDs sitting in boxes left on the pavement in front
of the shop window. You would assume that these CDs were the
unsellable rubbish of 2006, such as Nick Lachey's What's
Left Of Me, and
that may have been so, but there was at least one gem in there not
even hidden from the eyes of Tokyo's shoppers. Was I the only one
seeing this? Katatonia's The
Great Cold Distance
was in plain sight with a price so low that I still think I'm
misremembering it. The exchange rate has changed a lot since then,
but in 2006 ¥500 would have been equivalent to roughly £2.50,
which makes this album one of the greatest value purchases of all
time. It was still a very new release at that time, and I've failed
in my attempts to apply logic to its pricing other than to surmise
that Japan isn't hot for sorrowful, melodic, doom-inspired metal from
depressed looking Swedes. Japan's loss was my gain, and Katatonia
and I have been having a love affair ever since.
Some
might think that it's difficult to get close to a band with the
appropriately cold and distant approach to songwriting that Katatonia
display here. But the almost clinical delivery, crisp production,
and Jonas Renkse's restrained melodic vocals lend their sorrow a
certain Brechtian distance that promotes deep contemplation rather
than expressive anguish, and allow the more “metal” moments to
stand out. That's not to say this record isn't sonically as well as
emotionally heavy. With brutal thrashers like “The Itch”
Katatonia display the ferocity that makes clear their associations
with acts like Opeth, Bloodbath, and even their legendary British
indie label, Peaceville. But Katatonia's music works in different
ways to heavy music predicated on the notion that lighter moments,
such as a groovy guitar riff in an otherwise brutal grindcore song,
provide the necessary relief and respite from the intense building of
tension that precedes it. On The
Great Cold Distance
the musically heavier moments are the listener's chance to escape the
sorrowful darkness of the gentle instrumentation and introspection
that are at the heart of what Katatonia do. Banging your head to the
heavy parts of “Soil's Song” provides an escape from the
oppressive wintery feel of the opening and bridge sections, as if
releasing you from the tundra of this Swedish soil.
“My
Twin” and “Consternation” encapsulate all that later Katatonia
have come to represent: the former providing a forlorn ballad with a
catchy and floating chorus, while the latter displays Anders Nystrรถm's vicious guitar sound, superb songwriting, and drumming
equally at home in death metal and acoustic folk. In fact, it's
Katatonia's songwriting excellence and skill with their respective
instruments that sets them apart from other bands that have tried
such melodic dark metal. No other band can appeal equally to fans of
Evanescence and Death. If you are in the position of trying to
convince a friend that metal is for them then Katatonia might be the
ideal gateway band to get them hooked on even harder stuff.
“In
The White” is the cold, distant heart of this album, and is the
perfect song with which to introduce newcomers. The poppy bass line
counters lilting guitars that lead us to Renkse's opening lullaby:
Are
you in or are you out
The
words are stones in my mouth
Hush
little baby don't you cry
Truth
comes down
Strikes
me in the eye
The
verses float along on the bass line allowing the vocal to gently
guide us through this dark loneliness before the chorus offers a
solution:
To
overcome this
I
become one with
The
quiet cold of late November
But
as with all Katatonia, this respite is fleeting and we are pulled
back down to the “quiet cold”. It's a song, an album, and a band
that balances hope and despair, light and dark. Even though it was a
warm, sunny day in Tokyo when I was a newcomer to Katatonia, I will
always remember it as a sharp, cold, dark, and beautiful moment in a
frozen Scandinavian landscape. Japan has had my heart since I lived
there over 10 years ago, but my musical heart has been pulling towards Sweden ever since that day in 2006.
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