Night for day

Since my special lady is out for the evening, I was planning to come home and blithely blog about a crazy movie with which I've lately been obsessed. I trudged up the blandly carpeted stairs lugging my jacket (it was warm enough for just the hoodie), the book I finished today, the book I started after finishing the other and a few scraps of crap mail, including twin missives from our local congresswoman about the raging health care debate. Lamenting yet another day without the CD I pre-ordered last month, which was supposedly shipped last Friday, I fumbled the key into its slot and shoved open the testy door of our humble unit. The cats scampered to greet me, loudly demanding their dinner. I set down the books and jacket, dished out some stinky fish-smelling mush for the girls and tossed the propaganda into the nearly overflowing recyling bin... and then I saw the package on the table.

It was here. The Swedish Limited Digibook Edition of my favorite band's new album, "Featuring 20 Page Booklet and Bonus Track" and mailed with a postcard personally autographed by all five members (thanks, gents!). It doesn't come out in the States until next Tuesday. I have not illegally downloaded a leaked promo rip, nor accepted the free download of the lead track I'm entitled to for being on the band's e-mail list, nor previewed the samples they've posted online. I have been waiting until the disc was in my hands. I wanted to hear it in its entirety. I've read nothing about it except their own studio diaries and press statements. And now, since I have the time to nerd it up tonight, I'm going to document my track-by-track impressions as I listen to it for the first time. (You remember, I have done this in the past with power metal favorites Blind Guardian and Helloween.) Oh, I can't wait to hear it any longer. I present:

KATATONIA

Night Is the New Day

1. "Forsaker" [4:04] - A slow build to a pummeling intro. The rhythmic, monotone chugging at the onset here is the sort of thing that could confuse an unfamiliar listener a few bars later, when the band eases into cleaner, velvety guitars soaked in crystalline reverb. The guest synths by Frank Default are surprisingly prominent in the mix, but do not detract in the slightest. This album is rich and filling already...

2. "The Longest Year" [4:37] - As the current incarnation of Katatonia, their albums' second tracks always come equipped with super catchy choruses to follow the openers' insistently aggressive grooves. This one is a bit more abstract and artsy at first, but eventually grabs hold in the appropriate bleak and sweeping manner. The subdued electronic tinge of the verses adds texture, a big step up from the awkward drum loops inserted into "We Must Bury You" eight years ago. Jonas Renkse's lyrics are always choice: "How cold is the flame/Of our uncompromising future..." Awesome.

3. "Idle Blood" [4:21] - This is acoustic and pastoral at the onset, the keys fixing a slightly symphonic bed. For a minute there, I was thinking it was awfully Opeth-y. I know the bands are old pals and all, and Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt (who is currently in Bloodbath with two of the Katatonia guys and did the growly vocals on 2 of their mid-'90s releases) thinks NItND is "possibly the greatest 'heavy' record [he's] heard in the last ten years," according to the package's promo sticker. I never thought of them sounding very much alike until right now. This is, of course, far more compact and "poppy," but Renkse's vocal melody does give me the vibe of a b-side from Watershed, Opeth's excellent prog surrender from last year. It's not a bad thing, I suppose, just somewhat out of character. There's some beautiful guitar soloing by (I'm guessing) Anders Nyström, who wrote the track. I detected a Fender Rhodes during the fadeout.

4. "Onward Into Battle" [3:49] - Not a throwback to their doom/death days, then, but a tense anthem in the more familiar modern Katatonia vein. Come the first chorus, Daniel Liljekvist's deftly accented drumming leaves me in a heap, and I find it hard to pay attention to much else for a while. Then I notice Mattias Norrman's bass patiently driving the jittery machine, an inviting but sinister pulse. This song feels too short, which always helps replay value.

5. "Liberation" [4:16] - Not to be confused with their 2006 single "Deliberation." This one is a dark (of course), low-slung stomper with further evocative use of electronic beats during the verses. There's another corker of a catchy chorus. By track five, I am used to the occasionally prominent synths and completely impressed with the way this album feels. The mix really captures the band's strengths.

6. "The Promise of Deceit" [4:15] - I am swaying back and forth like a lunatic during this smoothly building, overall low-key groove monster. By the time it gets loud, it's swelled to the point that it can only rain down sheets of obsidian bliss. I have a strong feeling that songs like this are not going to have quite the same whisper/roar dynamics in a live setting, but I cannot wait to hear how they play them. Either Nyström or Fredrik Norrman is behind the harsh squeaking that bleeds into and out of the track - it's a guitar, not a synth.

7. "Nephilim" [4:25] - Oh, shit, that is a straight-up doom metal riff, and you cannot tell me it is not! I wish I had long hair right now, just so I could shake it slowly and deliberately in my own face. Driven by that cranky, eldritch Sabbathy guitar groan, the whole tune remains impressively foreboding, even the spookily mellow sections. Again, Renkse's lyrics are wonderfully evocative: "Listen/How he strides the earth/When only animals are awake..."

8. "New Night" [4:25] - Okay. Eight tracks in, and the band hasn't truly cut loose. Yet, here am I, still enjoying every track. The relative subtlety here was predicted on their last album, anyway. This is a very seductive midpaced number, led by songwriter Renkse's smooth vocal meanderings, which make me think of a romantic, moonlit winter night on a post-apocalyptic beach.

9. "Inheritance" [4:28] - If there was a darker than dark side of the moon, this song would be playing on it. The nocturnal atmosphere is incredibly thick within its opulently bitter strains. The quintet's confident synergy is totally on point here. I am shocked to embrace new elements like this song's "symphonic" interlude so quickly, but their expert integration makes me understand why Katatonia took so long to craft this disc (I think they originally wanted to get it out last year).

10. "Day and Then the Shade" [4:27] - This is the first single, for which a video is forthcoming. The riffing seems pretty complex for a single, but, then note-heavy bands are actually given some due by "Guitar Hero"-playing kids these days, so what the hell do I know? I think this is a great choice for a single, actually, in that it's uptempo and definitely sounds like Katatonia, yet retains an ethereal, alien aura that lets folks know they have grown up a bit more in the three years since The Great Cold Distance. Despite its own fussy, highbrow machinations, the chorus totally swings. (UPDATE: The "Day and Then the Shade" video is now out... it's pretty dumb, just some goth chicks writhing around in a bug-infested forest, but the song's good.)


11. "Ashen" [4:08] - This is the aforementioned "bonus track," only available on this particular version of this album (at the moment). Renkse sounds low and freaky at the beginning with some sort of vocal treatment. Some heavy-hitting riffing appears again, reminding me that there was some of that at the beginning of the album, alongside jangly guitars mixed with soaring, celestial keyboards. This is a gorgeous and varied track, injecting a welcome surge of energy near the end of a disc that I didn't notice lacking in it, proving that even their "extra" material is as carefully sculpted as the rest. I can already tell it was totally worth whatever extra I had to pay for this damn disc to have it sequenced where it is.

12. "Departer" [5:22] - The proverbial sun sets with a final chilled, electronically enhanced ballad, a final note from what is clearly a naturally evolved band. Here, Renkse is joined by someone named Krister Linder from a Swedish alternametal band called Enter the Hunt, with whom I am completely unfamilar. He actually shares co-writing credit with Jonas on the lyrics. Linder's not bad at all and doesn't trash the song, but he doesn't really add much, to be honest. For a moment there, it reminded me of a tug-of-war between Muse and Interpol, which is not to be taken as a negative connotation. It's a nice, floaty ending to a mature set of tunes.

Night Is the New Day boldly and assuredly takes the Katatonia sound into further territory. Some myopic, ignorant turd-gobblers will unfavorably compare it to all sorts of turncoat "False Metal" bullshit, but the fact is Katatonia hasn't been a strict metal band in well over a decade, which is part of their allure for those of us who appreciate variety and progression. I would have been disappointed had this album sounded exactly like their last one - as disappointed as I would have been if it sounded nothing like it. I am not disappointed at all, and if you are someone who has long appreciated where this band is coming from, I can't imagine you will be, either.

And, for your patient indulgence, I will give you a teaser of what I originally planned to write about tonight... THE CRAZIEST FUCKING MOVIE I HAVE SEEN IN AGES. I read about it somewhere and saw a trailer on YouTube before finding a fan-subbed copy, but knowing what I did going in did not prepare me for the sheer lunacy on display. I'm talking paradigm-shifting. Imagine if Guy Maddin made "The Evil Dead" as a comedic live-action cartoon after watching "Suspiria" 100 times in late 1970s Japan. It's sort of like that, but I haven't scratched the surface of how bonkers and entertaining it is. For your post-Halloween pleasure: the trailer for the inexplicably long-hidden 1977 Toho production, "House." More in the next post, gang, I pinky-swear.