KATATONIA — Dethroned & Uncrowned (review)

KATATONIA — Dethroned & Uncrowned album cover

Album · 2013 · Non-Metal

4/5 · 2013-09-10
arcane-beautiful

Katatonia in many ways have been the darker half of what Anathema have been doing in the past few years. Also, it isn't too hard to make a connection between these 2 bands. Both originally starting out as death/doom metal bands, over the years they have adopted there own sounds and have experimented a lot in their long careers. While I believe Anathema has definitely found their sound these past few years and have received a lot of praise over there challenging new musical adventures, Katatonia have also been doing a similar method, but have definitely kept there foot more in the metal world while Anathema has crossed over to the prog world.

But, over the past few years, having listened to stuff off there previous releases, I have noticed some slight differences to their sound, with the metal tone been toned down just a tad. And in fact, the band have even admitted that they have now become slightly tired of their metal sound. In fact, the last album “Dead End Kings” was supposed to originally have been this album with all arrangements in tact.

Musically the album strips the songs down to their basics, with very limited percussion and more highlights on acoustic guitars, keyboards and string sections. Comparing them to the originals, you can notice a slight difference. But, the slight negative is that these songs where originally metal songs, so some of the musical moments don't translate too well to a more softer feeling. At times it's pulled off very well, but I would love to hear new material made with this sound, rather than having the last album done acoustically.

The opener “The Parting” kicks the album off with some amazing vocal harmonies from Jonas. Great start to the album.

“The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here” is one of the most interesting tracks on the album. With guest vocals from Silje Wergeland from The Gathering, the mixture of female and male vocals bodes well to the song.

My personal favourite track on the album has to be “The Racing Heart.” The arrangement on this song is beautiful, with some very light instrumentation and the odd pacing and movements of the vocal melodies. Some very nice vivid lyrics throughout and definitely the catchiest song on the album.

The most eclectic track on the album would have to be “Buildings.” With some rather jazzy riffs and instrumentation, it goes well with the dark moods of the song.

“Undo You” is probably one of the more darker tracks on the album. With some rather dark chord progressions and rather chilling vocal lines, it definitely is the pinnacle of darkness on the album.

“Lethean” is probably one of the more brightest songs, with the drums actually being heard on the song. It's still rather depressing, but not as depressing as the rest of the songs on the album.

In conclusion, this album is a mixed bag for me. I think having listened to his has really made me discover why I like Katatonia so much, and its because the great mix of beauty and darkness in their music. Jonas' beautiful crooning mixed with the heaviness and power of the guitars works very well. This album was pulled off very well and the sounds created are pretty great, but I would have liked to have heard material written for this sound, rather than arrangements of the last album.

7.5/10

more than 2 years ago
Permalink
Report #288821

Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer

Please login to post a shout

arcane-beautiful wrote:

more than 2 years ago

apparently dead end kings was supposed to sound like this

bartosso wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Don't these guys have anything better to do? If you say that DEK (a good but in my opinion not sensational album) was better, than I don't think I'll bother to check this one out.

arcane-beautiful wrote:

more than 2 years ago

it pretty much is an acoustic version of dead end kings. i say its worth a listen, but Dead End Kings is better

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I saw the tracklist to this one and thought it might be some kind of compilation...an acoustic version of “Dead End Kings” eh...I´ll have to check this one out, but I don´t expect much...I usually don´t like experiments like this...