Band:	Katatonia
Album:	For Funerals To Come
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	1995
Guest review by:	Allen

01. Funeral Wedding
02. Shades Of Emerald Fields
03. For Funerals To Come
04. Epistel
05. Black Erotica [2012 Re-issue bonus]
06. Love Of The Swan [2012 Re-issue bonus]

Having left No Fashion in favor of the Italian based label Avantgarde Music, Sweden's Katatonia released this four track EP as a follow up to their Dance Of December Souls debut. Actually, it's only two real songs and two instrumentals, as "Funeral Wedding" and "Shades Of Emerald Fields" are very much in the vein of the debut, the former complete with the trademark mournful guitar harmonies and some frightening screams from Jonas Renkse towards the end, and the latter featuring some almost death metal riffing and a very atmospheric outro with cleanly sung vocals by Renkse.
The title track is a clean guitar instrumental with sound effects of wind blowing in the distance and a spoken piece. I never really felt comfortable with the vocal effects on this spoken piece. I think it would have been much more effective had they just been spoken without any effects. Nevertheless it's a pleasantly chilling piece in the vein of "Elohim Meth" from the debut. The final track, "Epistle" is nothing but a tidal wave of electronic noise with some demonic voices buried within, coming across as a bit annoying, but it's the final track on the disc and very short so it's basically the listener's own decision whether or not to subject themselves to it. I choose not to.

This is not what I would consider an essential purchase, unless you are a die-hard Katatonia fan like myself and just cannot be content without owning everything this band has released. Century Media records re-released this EP as a bonus addition to buying their second album, Brave Murder Day, and I would recommend this option for those new to this band who are looking to acquire their older material.