Band:	Katatonia
Album:	The Fall Of Hearts
Style:	Alternative rock
Release date:	May 20, 2016
Guest review by:	WayTooManyCDs

01. Takeover
02. Serein
03. Old Heart Falls
04. Decima
05. Sanction
06. Residual
07. Serac
08. Last Song Before The Fade
09. Shifts
10. The Night Subscriber
11. Pale Flag
12. Passer
13. Vakaren [CD/DVD and deluxe edition bonus]
14. Sistere [LP and deluxe edition bonus]
15. Wide Awake In Quietus [digital and deluxe edition bonus]
16. Night Comes Down [Judas Priest cover] [Japanese edition bonus]

If you love Jonas Renske's voice and the softer Katatonia material that never seems to make it on an official LP ("Unfurl", "Sold Heart", "Second", etc...) then this may be your favorite Katatonia album ever. The Fall Of Hearts unfolds like a fairy tale, slowly and carefully, with many unexpected twists to surprise those who hang in there for the entire journey. In an era of instant gratification The Fall Of Hearts is an enigma; it demands a lot of time for small rewards and whether those rewards are worth it will be entirely determined by the person listening.

As a fan of Katatonia from their first album on, I won't deny that I miss their early guitar work. The dual guitar sound was groundbreaking and no band before or since has accomplished a sound that comes anywhere close to matching it. While I appreciate the constant evolution and experimentation Katatonia does with their music, I too often found myself thinking "this song would have been so much better if they had opted for a few Discouraged Ones-style breakdowns instead" as I listened to this album. This isn't to discredit the music here, which is still very technical and exceptional in a different way, but it doesn't keep my attention like their earlier sound did.

To be fair, it took me over a year to fully appreciate Tonights Decision and I feel like The Fall Of Hearts is on the same schedule. Every time I get ready to write something critical I relisten to the songs I'm about to tear apart and find I enjoy them more than I first thought. However, as I sit here going through their discography, I think I've figured out my main criticism with their newest release: a lack of patience. I know that sounds ridiculous so hear me out. Early Katatonia painstakingly carried out tones to their fullest effect, getting every emotion possible out of a sound before moving to the next emotion; it was music you felt as opposed to music you just listened to. The Fall Of Hearts may constantly shift from one sound to another but the shifts are mostly emotionless and leave you with a feeling of emptiness.

The other major problem, in my opinion, is one of execution and one that may have been unavoidable. When they released a song like "Unfurl" it was a one-off; they weren't worried about the songs coming before it or the songs coming after it, they saw the idea to fruition from the beginning of the track to the end of the same track. With The Fall Of Hearts they couldn't settle into that same comfort zone, they couldn't throw everything into one four-minute track, they needed to fill a full-length album. If The Fall Of Hearts were a thirty-minute EP I think it would be praised as one of the greatest works Katatonia has ever created but with a playtime of over an hour the ideas are spread too thin and too often overstay their welcome.

= In Short = I have very mixed emotions about The Fall Of Hearts. I can tell it is a high quality album that still has a lot left to unlock but I also have little enthusiasm for the required repeat listens. There is no doubt in my mind that you could take any one track off of the album, listen to it individually, and love it. As a whole album, however, it can be a chore to get through. Perhaps it is an example of "too much of a good thing" but it may also be an issue of unrealized expectations. Opeth completely changed their sound but still use a lot of throwbacks to old tones that were beloved by fans, Katatonia seems to be stuck in a mindset that nothing existed in their discography prior to Viva Emptiness and continue to leave fans of their earlier material wanting.

While I respect that they are trying hard to craft a completely new sound for themselves (and did so to great success with Dead End Kings), I doubt I'm the only one still wishing for at least one song in the old style. It doesn't need to have the crazy growls, just give me a few minute instrumental...something! Would it help if I say please?...Please?