25 Days Of Metal 2012: #19 Katatonia – Dead End Kings

December 7th, 2012

Jordan Munson

Rather than counting down the days until we can celebrate Christmas, this year we’re bringing you a series of metal posts will be celebrating the countdown until we don’t have to be inundated with Christmas music and decorations everywhere. To coincide with this countdown we’ll be posting our top 25 metal (and metal-ish) albums of 2012. 25 days of hell, 25 rad metal albums to make up for it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u79MohYXcl4]

In the last handful of years there have been a number of bands releasing albums in the heavy, depressive, melodic, and atmospheric style of metal employed by Junius, Alcest, Swallow The Sun, Anathema et al. but none of these bands’ works quite match up to Katatonia’s last few records. Katatonia’s ninth full length album, Dead End Kings, picks up right where Night Is The New Day left off in 2009. Jonas Resnke’s soft, depressive vocals over the lumbering heaviness of the guitars, bass and drums playing with delicate string sections and piano passages create a massive, expansive sounding record from front to back. Though Jonas Renske is the primary songwriter for Katatonia, the personnel changes at lead guitar and bass following Night Is The New Day appear to have had a noticeable effect on the sound of the record, helping to differentiate the two albums in a pretty distinct fashion, bringing a slightly more progressive lean to Dead End Kings. When it comes to this style of music you would be hard-pressed to find a band that is as impressively on point as Katatonia always seem to be and Dead End Kings is another testament to exactly that.