Written by AndyMetalFreak on 06.12.2021 at 07:58

I like the growls, and the guitar tone is great, but other than that, the album bored the pants off me, I've tried many times to get into it, but the atmosphere does nothing for me, and leaves me emotionless, and the riffs dragged on too long, and were just plain dull imo. "Brave", and "Rainroom" are proberbly my favourite songs on the album, but are still nothing special to me, maybe Katatonia are not for me?

your opinion is quite negative but your rating is still high. I'd expected a low rating based on what you wrote there.

Written by JoHn Doe on 06.12.2021 at 08:18

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 06.12.2021 at 07:58

I like the growls, and the guitar tone is great, but other than that, the album bored the pants off me, I've tried many times to get into it, but the atmosphere does nothing for me, and leaves me emotionless, and the riffs dragged on too long, and were just plain dull imo. "Brave", and "Rainroom" are proberbly my favourite songs on the album, but are still nothing special to me, maybe Katatonia are not for me?

your opinion is quite negative but your rating is still high. I'd expected a low rating based on what you wrote there.

I found the same problem with Blackwater Park, there is quality musicianship there and I really like the vocals, I just found the songs a bit of a chore to listen too, I personally prefer the riffs to have a bit more melody, and a little less repetitive, but death doom metal has always been a hit and miss genre for me.

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 06.12.2021 at 07:58

maybe Katatonia are not for me?

Before concluding that you should check out their debut if you havent already.

Written by Redel on 06.12.2021 at 20:21

Written by AndyMetalFreak on 06.12.2021 at 07:58

maybe Katatonia are not for me?

Before concluding that you should check out their debut if you havent already.

I haven't yet listened to their debut so I will make sure to check it out

I'll simply never understand how this album is rated higher than The Great Cold Distance.

Written by Ivy Patterns on 20.12.2021 at 05:13

I'll simply never understand how this album is rated higher than The Great Cold Distance.

Than keep on thinking ........ simply black doom classic album, one of best album what ever came out in doom metal, not that after style change and sortha emo sounduing music what they plays after Brave Murder Day

Redundant riffs, mundane vocals, very few chord changes. It's an excruciating task just to sit through the whole thing. Not even in the same ballpark as Great Cold Distance, Viva Emptiness, or Last Fair Deal Gone Down

I usually like more exciting metal, so I was about to agree with Andy. But upon closer inspection, I really like the atmosphere and drawn-out riffs and vocals that have a kind of blackened flavor to them. "Brave" and the second half of the album ("Rainroom", "12", and "Endtime") are especially good

I just realized that Mikael Åkerfeldt is listed as a studio musician for Katatonia in 1996. But he doesn't show up at all on the musician timeline page. How much of the vocals here are Mikael Åkerfeldt's?

This and their debut not being considered gothic metal makes no sense to me.

Written by F3ynman on 15.02.2023 at 17:47

I just realized that Mikael Åkerfeldt is listed as a studio musician for Katatonia in 1996. But he doesn't show up at all on the musician timeline page. How much of the vocals here are Mikael Åkerfeldt's?

I'd estimate that 70% of the vocals are by Åkerfeldt, as he did the (harsh) lead vocals on all tracks but "Day".
And there's a very simple reason why you can't find his name on the timeline page: session musicians are generally not listed there.

I think Dance Of December Souls has more to offer but Brave Murder Day is easily a close contender.

This album is a great example of lightning in a bottle because the band could not have planned for it to turn out the way it did. They had disagreements with their producer about the direction of the band, Jonas Renkse's voice gave out so they had to bring in Mikael Åkerfeldt for the growls, when the master tape went out it was actually an unmastered rough version, when the album was printed the writing on the album cover blended into the background too much, things were a total mess behind the scenes. Even despite all of these setbacks the album's magic spread far and wide and has remained a cherished classic by many.

I've only recently added this to my collection but a had a few songs from it for many years. I prefer the earlier version of "12" (called Black Erotica) but otherwise this album just perfectly captures a specific mood that I don't think any other album really replicates. The writing is not terribly interesting, the repetitive nature of some of the songs makes this harder to spontaneously jump back into, and honestly I find most of Renkse's singing here to be crap (which wasn't really his fault), but when the time is right I like Brave Murder Day quite a lot. It encapsulates the ambitions of these then young musicians battling against their trials at the time and they made something that really resonated with a lot of people. I also consider it to be the last great thing they did.

Written by Zyk on 18.01.2024 at 09:08

It encapsulates the ambitions of these then young musicians battling against their trials at the time and they made something that really resonated with a lot of people.

It's interesting that many masterpiece albums have a background story of trials and tribulations. Electric Wizard's Dopethrone (with personal issues and pressure from the label) and Dissection's Storm of the Light's Bane (with producer Dan Swano suffering from a fever during the mixing) come to mind.