A clichéd thing to say perhaps but at the moment Katatonia are far from catatonic. A recent round of gigs sold out in the wake of highly respected last studio album ‘Night Is The New Day,’ one that got high praise from both critics and fans alike. Now just to make sure there is no forgetting the band comes this EP available only through the record company. This is a mixture of some of the songs from the album, two of which come with video clips, rearrangements and a new song.
You probably have heard both ‘The Longest Year’ and ‘Day And Then The Shade’ already. I mean Katatonia fans who are reading this review will have obviously picked up the album by now, I certainly did and after a shaky few first listens it has really grown on me. So it’s more interesting to concentrate on the videos which are both shot in very different styles. ‘Longest Year’ is no great surprise visually being sepia and shot around a collage of snow and buildings as well as the band members themselves occasionally popping up. Colours are purposefully left muted and it reminds a bit of some of the earlier pieces done by the likes of Paradise Lost and Anathema. Director Charlie Granberg also shot the group’s ‘My Twin’ video as well as others by Bloodbath and MDB but it is the Danish director and illustrator Lasse Hoile’s ‘Day..’ video clip which really captured my imagination. This is a glossy, sexy and beautifully shot romp in the woods where things get decidedly trying for the starring ladies who find themselves somewhat at one with nature. I would not call it completely original, as I was reminded of J-Horror, the recent and excellent Antichrist by fellow Dane Lars Von Trier and a bit of Karim Hussein’s nightmarish ‘Subconscious Cruelty.’ Still for me this was certainly the highlight of the disc and the maggot eating scenes must have put the actresses through their paces.
New song ‘Sold Heart’ was a song Jonas was working on around the album sessions but had not got round to completing, it is an incredibly mellow and fragile piece. In fact it is pretty much acoustic and meanders around his vocals and is described as “a brief idea of something, that could be beautiful,” a description which sums it up perfectly. The audio of ‘Day’ gets a chilled and more electronic mix than the album version and finally there is an alternate mix of ‘Idle Blood (Linje 14). It’s slightly dub orientated and again not in your face as it seems is pretty much the direction of the whole EP. There is no hard sell involved here, if you are a Katatonia kleptomaniac you are going to be grabbing this anyway, pick it up at the link below. Perfect it’s started raining, think I shall give the album another spin now.
http://www.burningshed.com/store/peaceville/product/261/2019
http://www.myspace.com/katatonia
