Band:	Katla
Album:	Scandinavian Pain
Style:	Sludge metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	March 21, 2025
A review by:	RaduP

01. Don't Let The Fuckers Get You Down
02. Goblet Of Power
03. Dead Lover
04. Eating Grapes With Kevin Sharp
05. Taurus
06. Hunab-Ku
07. White Dagger
08. Grim Jesus
09. Castle Of Purity

I started my stint as a Metal Storm reviewer with a review of Katla. Shortly afterwards another band by the same name popped up, but it was only now that the second Katla made it to the full length stage to make me be able to cover both bands on the main page.

I don't want to spend too much of the review talking about another band with the same name, but my first time giving Katla any attention was because they had this exact name and initially mistaking them for Katla. It doesn't help that Katla came just one year after Móðurástin and two after Ferðalok, so there's been a much longer time where there were two Katlas instead of just the one I first encountered. I probably wouldn't give this fact much mind if it wasn't for Móðurástin being my first review as an official contributor back in 2017 (jeez, that's dangerously close to an entire decade). Even since then Katla's existence has been mostly a fun "hey did you know there's another band with that name" fact, plus a quick Rate Your Music search reveals that there were two other bands with this name that were active even earlier, and another one that's also from Denmark and plays doom metal, so it's not like Katla. had a monopoly on the name.

Even though we didn't cover their 2018 debut EP, we have covered their following two EPs, and their split album, coincidentally all covered by musclassia, who also covered Katla.'s other album, making me only the second MS writer to have covered both Katlas (I will have to plan ahead better next time). Needless to say, the Danish band's brand of sludgy stoner doom is one that we've appreciated in the past, and having it in a more well-rounded full-length shape is something I've also looked forward to. Considering that their previous material could fit inside its own separate album, it was less about the quantity of the material, being more interesting to see how Katla would structure their music to fill up a full album.

With 42 minutes of runtime, Scandinavian Pain is about as conventional as can be length-wise, but the way that the album itself is arranged makes it feel more than a compilation of the best tracks the band has written since Overdoser, and most of that can be owed to the narration in two of its tracks. Cassandra Moase channels a new age self-help guru repeating affirmations on "Don't Let the Fuckers Get You Down", affirmations that end with "embrace life, embrace love, ... and Satan"; and Dale Smith is a more baritone cinematic and dramatic narration telling of an epic story on "Hunab-Ku". The placement of the two narrative tracks makes less sense when streaming the album, but the vinyl version has each side opening with one, though the lengthier "Hunab-Ku" does feel like a pretty good albeit too long for its own good breather.

Aside from the narrative tracks, Scandinavian Pain expands on the sludge/stoner/doom concoction that Katla presented hitherto. The fuzz filled riffing is groovy, the bass has a strong presence, the vocals are hoarse, the drums are powerful, though all of that is to be expected. But the band still pulls some surprises. There's the shorter than 20 seconds grind piece "Eating Grapes With Kevin Sharp", there's some pretty strong choruses in "Dead Lover" and "Taurus", the latter of which also has a pretty interesting bass solo in one of its breather moments and a guest spot from Afsky's Ole Luk. "Taurus" and "White Dagger" also have blast beat moments that feel strongly black metal inspired. Closer "Castle Of Purity" somehow brings things full circle by having the opener's mantra style approached through the band's sludge sound.

If the band's shorter releases haven't made as big of a splash, Scandinavian Pain shows a band that's willing to creatively play around with established styles, displaying a tongue-in-cheek humor, and sounding colossal while at it. If their signing to Napalm Records didn't show that there's more to the band that sharing the name, Scandinavian Pain should.