Get Katatonic with Dead End Kings

Whenever I am asked which my favourite Katatonia album is, my standard response is to stare pensively into the distance for a moment and then simply reply ‘every Katatonia album’. And now their ninth studio album Dead End Kings has entered the equation... my answer remains the same.

Since their humble beginnings in 1991, Katatonia’s music has constantly evolved, whilst maintaining a consistent, uncompromising quality and abiding faithful to their melancholy concept. This latest masterpiece of sumptuous, searching songs is certainly a far cry from their early doom/death days as a Swedish duo, taking the underground by storm. Yet, their darkness persists.

I was totally captivated by this album within the first couple of seconds of the opening track, ‘The Parting’. The cellos add an air of vulnerability and solemnity, which perfectly complements Jonas Renkse’s heartfelt and powerful, clean vocal style. Their sound has developed into a distinct mixture of prog and melody, with a sophisticated hint of gothic keyboards and orchestration. The songs are definitely catchy and the overall execution is flawless, making this album very accessible, especially (I imagine) for new Katatonia listeners.

A constant feeling of emptiness and longing is exposed throughout the album. This desolation is gravitated by the eloquence of the lyrics; most notably in the exquisitely bleak song, ‘The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here ft. Silje Wergeland’. The increased abstraction and surrealism of the lyrics is an obvious change in this album, focusing more on pure emotion and less on storytelling. Every song appears to simply linger, until it fades into its successor. By far the most sobering song on this album is ‘Undo You’; written by the only other original band member, lead guitarist Anders Nyström. It harks back to their 1995 EP For Funerals To Come. This track portrays the popular theme, amongst Katatonia songs, of our inescapable doom; whether or not we positively turn our lives around, and achieve all that we want to, and become happy…our death is still inevitable. (Cheerful stuff!)

“One of these days

Hours pass yet the night stays

When your spirit won’t turn anew

The world shutsdown with no goodbye to undo you.”

The album artwork is as beautiful and bleak as the music itself. Again, harking back to earlier days of Brave Murder Day, the image of the dead bird is used. This bad omen reiterates the foreboding sense presented in the songs. This surreal, rural meets urban, landscape perhaps depicts their Dead End as a physical place; an icy white scene that has become blackened with pollution and a backdrop that is reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock film.

This Monday, 10th December, Katatonia return to London as part of their highly anticipated European Tour. They will be performing alongside the French shoegazing, concept band Alcest, off the back of their exquisite third album Les Voyages de L’Âme, released earlier on this year, and Junius, an art rock band from Boston. I definitely urge anyone who is partial to doom and gloom to attend, as this is a line up not to be missed!

Anders Nyström comments –

“We are very much looking forward to a tour that definitely stands out from the rest. Stare into November’s darkness with us! Be with us at the side of December’s deathbed! Come meet us at the chosen dead ends of Europe...”

So, what should we expect next from the doom quintet? Will they ever return to the death days of old or continue to divergedown the prog route? Or perhaps they really have become stuck in a Dead End... I sincerely doubt it.