Katatonia - Discouraged Ones ...

After the creation of the bands landmark album 'Brave Murder Day' Katatonia called it a day. Thankfully it was a short day as their return to music was surprisingly good. This album shows the band losing all of their deathly vocals and "extreme edge" and opting for a straight forward and highly original traditional doom approach. In the bands eyes, this album and consequently its follow up, are musically in the same vein as 'Brave Murder Day' and this is true to an extent. One could point out that they are both minimalistic and 97% open chorded. That they are both melodic and Doom filled; but they aren't the same. The guitars sound is if they are tuned to standard instead of drop 'D' and the songs have more conventional structures, repetitive but varied. The music is more in the verse chorus verse style then it was in the past. The guitars take the melancholic sound that they had established on the prior release to a new level. The leads are incredibly sorrow filled and bleak. There are no real solos to speak of save for the instrumental towards the end of the album. The band have some odd (awkward perhaps) riffs that really shouldn't work but do. They have a very dissonant and grinding quality. This is a very riff happy album.

The bass more or less follows the guitars never really adding anything to special. The drums pick up right where 'BMD' left off, perhaps being a little faster however and have a couple more nuances (arguably).

The vocals are clean and a little awkward as Jonas doesn't really do much aside from musically moaning above the music. It’s apparent that he's not comfortable in his skin; this changes on later releases however. The lyrics are more coherent than they were on 'BMD' as well, and as the albums title would suggest they're very dreary.

Katatonia was never the heaviest band and sadly probably never will be at least from an instrumental point of view. Their weight has been in the emotional intensity  and the utter surrender of their attitude. There is a vast amount of atmosphere on every track. As with all doom metal, this isn't background noise; this is meant to be listened too in a dark or dimly lit room by oneself contemplating life and whether or not it’s truly worth living. This is a soul stirring release that, while lacking in a few places (most noticeably towards the end of the album) its still very high quality. This is what true traditional doom metal and a worthy addition to anyone's collection. This gets a 9.5 out of 10.

Words: Grimm Doom

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