Katatonia's "Viva Emptiness" and "The Great Cold Distance" should be removed from The Gateway

You guys might or might not agree with me here, but I don't think Katatonia's "Viva Emptiness" and "The Great Cold Distance" qualify as metal. Looking back at them, they both have the same level of rock as "Tonight's Decision" and "Last Fair Gone Deal Down", only in a switch from that pair's gothic rock with lots of reverb and distortion to more of a mainstream alt-rock sound based on riffs for this pair. Sure these albums have metal aggression in a few songs, yet it mostly spirals back and forth from the atmospheric undertow to the soundscape surface. "Night is the New Day" is probably the true start to the band's alt-metal era with both melodic accessible songs and other songs returning to their heavier era of "Discouraged Ones". Anyway, I'd like to suggest removing Katatonia's "Viva Emptiness" and "The Great Cold Distance" from The Gateway and giving them the Non-Metal tag.

Actually neither. Looking back at them now, I feel bad for suggesting the removal of two albums that clearly have the right to be considered metal. While this site doesn't rely on outside sources, I'm sure there are many out there that say those albums are metal in some way. In fact, The Great Cold Distance is on PopMatters' Top Metal Albums of 2006 at #8, so why dethrone that kind of honor? Not only that, The Great Cold Distance is in The Gateway Alternative Metal Modern Era challenge, and recently, October's Gateway playlist, most likely the latter being what made me want to reconsider this submission. At the time I made this submission, I was a little shocked by the amount of rock put into the sound of both albums. That was the same kind of shock I felt when I saw Linkin Park's mainstream hit "In the End" on that Gateway playlist. So yeah, both Viva Emptiness and The Great Cold Distance are better staying in the Gateway and should probably stay that way. Submission cancelled!