Reviews list for Katatonia - Dance of December Souls (1993)

In my many years of listening to metal there are a few albums that I struggled to grasp the appeal behind. For example, The Karelian Isthmus by Amorphis has long enjoyed the praise of my peers but I personally find it dull as dishwater. I even bought it on CD at a second-hand store one year off the basis of one of my internet acquaintances telling how good a record it was. That same acquaintance has also waxed lyrical about Dance of December Souls by Katatonia for years.

This time around I must acknowledge that the point of Dance of December Souls was largely lost on me because I gave it the incorrect amount of attention required to really appreciate how good an album this was. Criminally, I did this for years. Just applying the occasional spin of the record every now and again whilst doing something else entirely and then asking myself what all the fuss was about. Such scant regard for the true quality of Katatonia’s debut album means that I have missed the impact of a very important album for around five years.

This as a debut release for any band is an achievement. For a band who in 1991 recorded a demo that Anders Nyström himself described as “… is not Katatonia. It's some fuzzy, noisy necro shit done completely aside" to release this masterpiece some two years later shows a massive leap forward in maturity. Sitting listening to the bass work of Guillaume René Le Huche (Israphel Wing on the album notes) alone is a joy to behold. The flowing deep tones that run alongside the dark gothic melodies of the guitar and the crisp and brittle drums make for a real individual journey for the listener to chart the progress of. Factor in the ghastly vocals of Jonas Renkse and you get a real sense of the variation of Dance of December Souls.

Even the instrumental tracks possess an astonishing level of quality to savour over their short runtimes. Elohim Meth is superbly placed in this record to bridge the two halves of the album as it closes off the aggressive mentality of Without God and leads us into the more melancholic Velvet Thorns (of Drynwhyl). The real standout track however is Tomb of Insomnia. A thirteen-minute track straight after a near fourteen-minute track is a bold move but the build of this track is just so well measured and although it clearly has distinct passages at no point is there any disconnect during the track.

Listening through the album a few times again as I wrote this review it occurred to me that the album has an almost classical music theme to it, with certain guitar work sounding like a dank version of some Mozart or Beethoven concerto. Not flashy like Ywngie would do it, no this is much more subtle and might not be all that conscious, but it comes across to me as this was (maybe still is) a band that are really in touch with music and that they feel as opposed to just perform this album.

I have but one, very minor quibble of Dance of December Souls. The drumming appears upon first listen to deploy no cymbals or hi-hats. After many more listens, I do believe that they are there, but they are not well mixed. As a result, I feel the album could have a greater sense of drama than the already dizzy heights of gothic theatre that we have. This in no way can detract from my perfect score.

A sorrowful collection of melancholic death doom that never fails to move me.

As impressive as Katatonia’s first release (the Jhva Elohim Meth... the Revival EP) was, it had in fact never been intended as anything other than a demo. While Vic Records clearly felt it was good enough to have an official release (they re-released it on CD with no changes to the demo recording), there were certainly some uncomfortable moments throughout, with sloppy musicianship and slightly off musical choices marring what was an otherwise emotionally engaging and thoroughly unique sound. When it came to producing a more deliberate Katatonia album, the Swedes made a few small yet significant changes, resulting in more defined and consistent material. The Paradise Lost inspired death doom is still well and truly present, as are the distinctively melancholic melodies and the raw agonised vocals, but the minor black metal element of earlier work has been removed altogether. The band also added an extra member, with Guillaume Le Huche (aka Israphel Wing) taking bass duties out of Blackheim’s hands, not only giving him the chance concentrate on guitar, but also allowing the band to perform live for the first time. Katatonia entered Unisound Studios (still going by the name Gorysound at the time) on the 4th of April, 1993, with Dan Swanö once again producing, mixing and engineering the album, not to mention performing all keyboards under the name Day DiSyraah, which is the pseudonym he was using at the time for his Pan-Thy-Monium project.

Exactly five days later, Dance of December Souls was completed, but for whatever reason it took a further eight months to be released. It would be easy to assume that the band’s new label No Fashion Records wished for the album to hit the shelves in December as a marketing tool, but that’s not particularly likely given the underground status of the band at the time. When it did finally see the light of day, it was met with instant praise from the metal scene at large, and Katatonia’s lengthy evolution was truly set in motion. I have to admit that Dance of December Souls didn’t make such an immediate connection with me, and it took quite of few listens before the melodies really worked their magic. Despite the album having far superior production than Jhva Elohim Meth... the Revival along with much tighter musicianship (it’s still a bit loose mind you), there’s something very raw and harsh about this debut full length. I can only put it down to the unprocessed nature of the production and the exceptionally honest emotion that Blackheim and Lord J. Renkse (he no longer went by the name Lord Seth) managed to squeeze out of these tracks. Renkse’s vocals in particular are tortured and angst-ridden, and while his clean modern style still contains a certain level of despondency, his output here reaches much greater depths of sorrow and rage. It’s not surprising to hear that every one of these misery-filled cries was seriously damaging his throat, which is why this is the only full length Katatonia album to incorporate them.

In the end though, it’s Blackheim that really deserves credit for this wonderful album. There are a constant flow of doomy riffs, deeply moving melodies and nice acoustic sections in every track, and while his style is still recognisable on the post millennium albums, he would rarely display this sort of variety again. It’s a pretty consistent album all up, but the highlights for me would have to be the two thirteen minute tracks, Velvet Thorns (of Drynwhyl) and Tomb of Insomnia, where the band get the room to explore their gloomy themes to the max. As good as Dance of December Souls is, I don’t think it’s wise to assume that you will find it to your liking just because you enjoy recent albums like The Great Cold Distance. All of their albums are based around depressive, emotionally charged tones, but then the means in which they produce them has varied dramatically since their inception. The harsher qualities of this debut are far less accessible, so I recommend checking it out prior to purchasing. If that’s what you choose to do, it’s worth noting that there are a few different versions available. The pick of the bunch would have to be the 2007 special digipak released by Peaceville, that also contains the entire Jhva Elohim Meth... the Revival EP, all remastered with exclusive liner notes. There’s also a re-issue from label Black Lodge that has totally different artwork, but the band has stated that “we do not support this re-issue and take complete distance from its existence”, so you might want to avoid it.