CITY BURIALS

Thankfully, Katatonia's hiatus announced in 2018 did not last very long. In Autumn 2019 the band let fans know they were back in the studio to record a new album. Fast forward to April 2020 and the new album, City Burials, is out. So, how is it? Certainly not an easy album to get into. The first time I listened to it, I was actually scared: I loved everything the band has done since 2001 Last Fair Deal's Gone Down, with the exception of 2009's Night Is the New Day, and that was a sad day for me. I did not want to repeat the experience with City Burials.

And in many ways City Burials reminded me of Night Is the New Day. It may be a coincidence, but the band decided to work on City Burials when they were touring Night Is the New Day in its entirety in 2019, so I wonder whether the fact that they were playing those songs night after night somehow influenced the creation process of City Burials. Another parallel between the two albums is that many of the songs on Night Is the New Day were written by Renkse, who wrote the totality of the songs on City Burials. The consequence of this is that the two albums share one uneasy characteristic: the search for melodies that are not easy to absorb immediately. Vocalist Jonas Renkse never goes for the straightforward melodic solution, neither in the verse not in the chorus of these 11 songs. Rather, he tries and finds something unusual, oblique, unexpected. The result is an album that only grows on you with repeated listening (and I mean many repetitions of active listening!).

Another similarity between City Burials and Night Is the New Day is the fact that both albums are quite heterogeneous in the style of the songs on them. Several songs on City Burials are quite far removed from metal: Lacquer, Vanishers, Lachesis are built on layers of subtle electronic arrangements, with very subdued guitars, and an alternative-pop quality to the vocals (on Vanishers Jonas is accompanied by alt-rock singer Anni Bernhard, with stunning results). In many ways all these songs reminds me of the song Departer on Night Is the New Day, another similarity between the two albums. But then we have also songs that are much heavier - probably the heaviest stuff the band has put out in a long time: Behind the Blood, for example, or Untrodden with its fast and shimmering guitar solo. Other songs are more in the style of the latter albums (Dead End Kings and The Fall of Hearts), with their melancholic overtones and unpredictable structure (another reason why the album is not easy to absorb).

Thankfully, I think that City Burials is much better than Night Is the New Day: the quality of some of the songs here is amazing (Heart Set To Divide, Behind the Blood, Lacquer, Vanishers, Untrodden are all masterpieces and among the best songs Katatonia ever made). Other songs are somewhat a step behind in quality, although in many cases they have their moments of greatness (Rein, The Winter of Our Passing, City Glaciers). In all cases the spotlight is on Renkse's vocals, which here reach new levels in terms of emotion and quality. He has improved so much from the days of Discouraged Ones!

I feel that the second part of the album is a bit weaker than the first 6/7 songs (Flicker and Neon Epitaph don't do much for me). This is a slight unevenness that perhaps could have been rectified by producer Jacob Hansen. I also feel that the production is a bit too "light". This works well in some of the more subdued tracks, but in other songs I miss a bit more heaviness and aggression. But especially more guitars: I really miss more of Nystrom's usually mesmerizing guitar leads and riffs.

But overall this is a strong album, slightly different from the previous two albums Katatonia have released, mellower, more electronic and less metal (think about the collaboration between Renkse and Bruce Soord, The Wisdom of Crowds), but still retaining all their trademark gloom and melancholy.