Katatonia - Night Is the New Day

November 10, 2009

Reviewer: Matt

Katatonia’s remarkable consistency continues with their long-awaited eighth studio album, Night Is the New Day.  Fans of Katatonia’s rich back catalogue will be pleased with Night Is the New Day, as Katatonia have, as they do every album, given them something new and exciting with a tweaked, refined sound. 

While Katatonia will likely never surpass their 1999 opus Tonight’s Decision, their most haunting and captivating release and their creative peak, they still have an unparalleled ability to churn high quality, earnestly depressive songs album after album.  Always a rock band at heart even when they were aesthetically metal, Katatonia have nailed down their depressive rock formula, becoming something like The Cure for today’s disaffected.  Quiet verses, heavy choruses, and Jonas Renkse’s mournful vocals all check in on Night Is the New Day, but some new techniques make an impressive debut.

Prior albums typically relied on cleanly-picked guitar lines during the verses and heavy rocks riffs overlaid with melodic leads during the choruses.  The verses on Night Is the New Day follow the same approach, but Katatonia focus less on melody in the choruses.  Rather, the focus here is on muscular riffs with subtle atmospheric keyboards backing Renkse’s singing.  The result is Katatonia’s darkest, and arguably their heaviest, record to date.  From the slamming Tool-like riff of opener “Forsaker” to the despondent doom metal riff in “Nephilim”, Night Is the New Day shows the band moving away from some of the melodrama that crept into their earlier material in favor of a sound bursting with brutal self-torment.  And the keyboards, only flirted with in the past, now are prominent, pleasantly fleshing out the compositions by adding a denser aura of misery and despair.

As often the case with Katatonia, there is some filler.  “The Promise of Deceit” sounds more like an outtake from The Great Cold Distance, and “Inheritance” is sterile.  But Katatonia deliver on the bulk of the album.  The opening four tracks are killer, particularly the aforementioned opener and the gloomy ballad “Idle Blood.”

Some may argue Katatonia is predictable and content repeating their formula album to album, but I think they’re admirable for their consistently strong output.  Katatonia have always delivered great collections of depressive songs, and Night Is the New Day holds true to that history.  Long time Katatonia fans already have Night Is the New Day on their list, and it absolutely deserves to be there.

Release Date: November 2nd, 2009
Label: Peaceville Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Forsaker
2.  The Longest Year
3.  Idle Blood
4.  Onward Into Battle
5.  Liberation
6.  The Promise of Deceit
7.  Nephilim
8.  New Night
9.  Inheritance
10.  Day & Then the Shade
11.  Departer

Total playing time:  48:38

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