Review Summary: Katatonia’s often-overlooked debut is a unique doom metal masterpiece and one of their best albums.
If you listen to any Katatonia LP after
Brave Murder Day, you’ll see a gothic rock band with some metal and progressive rock influences that make similar-sounding, but, more often than not, well-executed and emotive songs. This current sound is certainly unique and successful, but it’s pretty far removed from their roots; as
Dance of December Souls shows, Katatonia started out as a doom metal band (later describing themselves as “
Paradise Lost fanboys”), with vocalist Jonas Renkse performing chilling harsh vocals rather than the smooth, lyrical clean vocals he’s now known for.
Dance of December Souls is, in fact, the only Katatonia LP to prominently feature harsh vocals from Renkse (who was at this point known as “Lord Seth”). This is because he lost the ability to perform these vocals after the album was released, resulting in
Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt performing them instead on
Brave Murder Day and the following EP,
Sounds of Decay. After those two releases, Katatonia decided to abandon harsh vocals entirely, and developed the style that they’re now known for today.
Listening to the vocals on this album, it’s hard not to see why Renkse lost the ability to perform harsh vocals. His particular vocal style was especially gut wrenching and agonized; it seems as though, rather than learning how to growl with proper technique, he opted instead to literally scream at the top of his lungs into the microphone. The effect is actually extremely powerful, and it’s part of what makes this album so special; the vocals bear a closer resemblance to those of
Mayhem’s Maniac than to those of Renkse’s friend Mikael Åkerfeldt. The black metal-esque vocals have led some to label this album and the other early Katatonia releases “blackened doom metal”, even though there are really no other black metal aspects to the album. It goes to show just how unique Katatonia’s sound was at this point in their career; there’s really no other doom metal band that sounds quite like this.
The vocals, of course, aren’t the only unique aspect of
Dance of December Souls. Instrumentally, this album sounds completely different from any of their other LPs; even
Brave Murder Day. It features harmonized guitars, beautiful melodies and dark, cold atmospheres, much like
Brave Murder Day, but while later Katatonia releases more often feature driving mid-tempo songs, this album features slow, loose doom metal tempos and lots of tempo changes. In a given song on this album, the band wanders through many different feels and tone colours; this is most evident in tracks 6 and 7, “Velvet Thorns (of Drynwhyl)” and “Tomb of Insomnia” respectively. Those two songs are, in fact, the longest songs that Katatonia ever recorded, and they’re both masterful. These two epics are very different from one another: “Velvet Thorns” more prominently features slow, mournful melodies, while “Tomb” is full of sharp dynamic contrasts and dramatic intrigue. If I had to choose a favourite song on the album, it would have to be one of those two, but please don’t make me choose!
It should be mentioned that Dan Swanö’s contributions to
Dance of December Souls are part of what make the album so successful. He worked with the band on the production, and the result is a very distinctive and beautiful-sounding record. The drums (interestingly, also performed by Renkse) are crisp and reverberant; the distorted guitar tones are meaty and powerful, while the clean and acoustic tones are delicate and atmospheric; the bass provides a rare, hidden warmth to the overall character; and the vocals are powerful, possessing a fullness of sound while still being dark and cold. Swanö also performed keyboards on some of these songs, using sounds that further accentuate the tragic, morose atmosphere of the album. Without the elements that Swanö added, the album would not have come across so effectively.
It’s understandable why Katatonia’s debut is somewhat overlooked compared to their other albums. It’s quite possible that fans of the band’s later work, even
Brave Murder Day, would find it difficult to appreciate the very different feel of this album, and some may find its relative looseness to make it meandering or incohesive. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth; Katatonia knew exactly what they were doing when they made this album, and every song has something of its own to offer to listeners. Repeated listens may be necessary to reveal the secrets of this album, such as the subtle reference to Joy Division’s “The Eternal” in “Without God’, the gut-wrenching melodies of “In Silence Enshrined”, or the tragic, unassuming cadence of instrumentals “Elohim Meth” and “Dancing December”; but when given time,
Dance of December Souls, while not quite reaching the brilliant heights of the classic
Brave Murder Day, still offers a whole world of dark, powerful and unique beauty to discover.
