June 2023 Feature Release - The Gateway Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature release for The Gateway, nominated by me (Shadowdoom9 (Andi)), is the new 12th album by Swedish dark alternative metallers Katatonia, Sky Void of Stars. Upon revisiting Katatonia via this album, I noticed that they finally brought back the glory they last had 25 years ago despite still firmly staying in prog-ish alternative metal, and I think it's time for us to share our opinions on this album while it's still fresh.

https://metal.academy/releases/42052

Here's my review summary:

Katatonia is known as one of the finest metal bands to come from Stockholm, Sweden. So why am I not getting into more of this action? See, they started as a death-doom band throughout the early/mid-90s, and they made a couple of the best albums of that genre. But when I left the Fallen clan, I distanced away from this band (among other death-doom bands), and the depressive lyrics they've had throughout their career kind of boosted my moving out motive. Interestingly, their albums from Viva Emptiness onwards are in the clan I switched into, The Gateway, with those albums considered dark alternative metal with post-/progressive elements. When I found out about their newest album Sky Void of Stars (the title sounds like a depressing take on a Coldplay single), I remembered the decently well-made City Burials from 3 years prior and my subsequent wonder of whether or not Jonas Renkse and co. could do better. And they've done it! They've made something close to a masterpiece of creativity. There's so much to discover the moment this offering started playing. They've enhanced their sound in this ongoing alt-metal era, continuing the mellowness of City Burials while eliminating the plodding factors and climbing back up towards the top. My concerns about if the depressiveness becomes too depressing is now out the window, and instead we have what might just be the best album Katatonia made in 25 years. The more progressive songs are complex in the riffing and rhythm while staying melodic. Drummer Daniel Moilanen makes his way through an impossibly big amount of time signatures. Bassist Niklas Sandin impressively keeps up with the fast technicality, into a bridge of mellow jazz. Guitar duo Anders Nyström and Roger Öjersson are the masters behind the riff complexity, with the latter performing a beautiful soloing. Of course, we can't forget about Jonas Renkse's warm vocal melodies, but while the unpredictability of the vocals can level up the impact, right from the beginning, it might catch you off guard at times. As the album goes on, you get find more of this melodic goth alt-metal throwing back to the band's 2000s albums and even as early as Discouraged Ones and Tonight's Decision. If you're not as experienced with Katatonia as I am (despite my break from that band for over a year), Sky Void of Stars wouldn't be easy for you initially unless you give a lot of listening time. Eventually, it'll be worth witnessing the album's brilliance. Katatonia had finally made their way back on top in their discography, and I look forward to more!

4.5/5

Recommended tracks: "Austerity", "Opaline", "Author", "Sclera", "Atrium", "No Beacon to Illuminate Our Fall"

For fans of: Alice in Chains, early-2000s Paradise Lost, Soen

I have been listening to Sky Void of Stars quite a bit in recent months. I would not class myself as a big Katatonia fan even (well not beyond Dance of December Souls anyway), yet something has kept me coming back over the recent sorties I have flown over this strangely endearing record.

Placing my finger exactly on what I like here is a tough call for me. Alternative metal is not anywhere near the top of my metal preferences. However, as with that Bad Omens’ record last year, I occasionally find a malignant tenderness in the less extreme metal formats that I stumble across, a sort of infrequent palate cleansing of the harsher tasting notes that linger on my tastebuds over time that helps me understand that aggression does not always have to be aggressive, darkness can exist through performing more in the light and that melancholy can be expressed without listening to someone bleed their very soul out on a record.

Katatonia it should be mentioned are amazing musicians and songwriters. They have had years of practice of honing their artform and it shows in spades on Sky Void of Stars. There is an engrained clumsiness in most of these tracks that they still manage to pull off without too many points of the cumbersome nature of some of the structures becoming unbearable. Tracks such as (my personal) album highlight Impermanence follow a trajectory where the lyrics sound like they are perhaps written for another song with different pacing and tempo altogether, yet they somehow end up so well suited to the track. I find this album therefore to be a very confident sounding release. Not cocksure or arrogant, just bold in their beliefs that their ability to express themselves need not always take a traditional or conformist path.

I would argue that the album stretches its legs beyond just the walls of alternative metal with those background keys and voluminous chunky riffs adding progressive climes to the overall construct. When they speak, the lead guitarist’s work of Roger and Anders possesses a sublime clarity that fills the very air around them with rays of colour that can at times seem lacking in the more mechanical rhythms that get deployed.

I have a feeling that over time my rating for this record will grow but for now it is a very comfortable listen that has duplicitous purpose as it can just as easily be background or driving music as well as lending itself equally well to a deeper and more exploratory listen.

3.5/5

I am no expert on Katatonia by any means, I really like Brave Murder Day and really dislike Last Fair Deal Gone Down, so my opinion on them is "variable" at best. Still, approaching Sky Void of Stars with no strong expectation either way, I was quite pleasantly surprised by what I found within it's fifty minutes runtime. 

This is a really tuneful and melodic album that references the progressive sounds of bands like Porcupine Tree and Riverside. Unsurprisingly, as he wrote all the material on Sky Void of Stars, the vocal performance of Jonas Renkse is absolutely central to the album. It is fortunate, then, that his performance is top-notch with a strong presence and impressive consistency. I don't wish to demean the contributions of the other band members as they too are of the highest quality, but they are more restrained and are used as the foundation and support of the vocals. This feels similar to the way that the E-Street Band back Springsteen's singing, they are all superb musicians in their own right, but The Boss is the main event. Personally, I would have liked to have heard the band as a whole let off the leash and the album lean more towards a progressive sound with some lengthier instrumental sections. There were a couple of times where it seemed about to happen, but it never really materialised. That said, that is obviously not what was intended here, the focus being less on progressive instrumental explorations and more on precise melodies and memorable musical phrases, with the lyrics and vocals being placed front and centre. To that end Sky Void of Stars is inordinately successful and I got plenty of enjoyment out if it. No doubt I will return to it at some future point, the scales of judgment on Katatonia now weighted more towards the positive as far as I am concerned.

4/5