FOR FUNERAL TO COME

This is an EP that Katatonia put out to tide over their fans who were eagerly awaiting the followup to their debut, Dance of December Souls. It isn't quite as interesting as the material on that album - it's a clutch of competently done death-doom pieces that don't quite have the gravitas of the December Souls material - so putting this out as an EP was probably the right call. Dan Swanö of Edge of Sanity guests once again, though he only provides the engineering rather than making the sort of keyboard contributions which he spiced up December Souls with. On the whole fun, but not one I would give top priority to.

Let's be honest.

The Nordic doom-death-metal albums of the early 90's are not aging very well. And this EP from the Swedish Katatonia is not an exception.

Despite the engineering of the extreme metal mastermind Dan Swanö, the guitars sound hollow and the keyboards dated. But that's not an exclusive problem of the first records of Katatonia, because the first offerings of Amorphis, Anathema and Opeth are more of the same in terms of sound quality and production.

Nevertheless, this EP contains two decent doom-prog metal tracks named Funeral Wedding and Shades of Emerald fields, not memorable but complex and funny enough. In the extended edition of the EP, there are two tracks recorded for a compilation which are pretty decent too, Black Erotica and Love of the Swan, which is more of a gothic melody.

So, if you are into this kind of Nordic metal of the early 90's, you will surely enjoy this "For Funerals To Come". But if you are more into prog or traditional prog-metal, you can easily avoid this EP.

My Rating: **