Composer Reacts to Katatonia - Without God (REACTION & ANALYSIS)

[@breidablikmusic2501]

One of my all-time favorite albums. Filled with contrasts, changes, and emotions.

[@Kraakesolv]

Same here, been one of my favourites of the 90s since then.

[@thegrimner]

Yeah, at this time Katatonia were very much enamored of early Paradise Lost. The guitar sound in particular was very much stolen from PL's Gothic, and I can very much imagine them just giving that album to the producer and saying "make it sound like this". The flowing guitar work is possibly the firmest evolutionary vestige that was carried in every iteration of the band. It's actually an evolution that would be making more sense starting with the next album; Jonas Renske, at this time, was the band's vocalist and drummer, and he more or less shot his voice doing the growly stuff wrong. So, for next album, Brave Murder Day, they had Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth doing the harsh vocals, and the first shift leaning a lot on the flowy guitars you spotted; so much so that the album was composed in studio; Songs were long and repetitive on that album, as tends to happen when you're jamming. Jonas was back to vocals on the third album, using the soft sung style that you may know the band for, even if the technique was still pretty rudimentary back then, but the result was more or less akin to The Cure doing doom metal. There was still one thing holding the band back, which was Jonas's drumming, way too rigid and bland. Getting an actual drummer was the catalyst for them achieving their modern sound, and it clearly freed them up to a lot of experimentation. Now that I think of it, and since you divided the elements of the song into rigid drums and vocals and the more playful melodic elements, it's probably not a coincidence that the rigid elements are tied to Jonas while the more flee flowing ones are tied to Anders Nystrom, the guitar player; maybe their evolution revolves a lot on Jonas own maturation and finding his sweet spot. Anders was always very distinctive, and you could listen to his black metal side thing, Diabolical Masquerade, and easily see it as the product of his guitar style. The point being, it's a very fascinating evolution. Where bands like Ulver just pulled a complete 180, here the growth and change was a lot more organic and the result of both circumstance and adaptation. Harder to notice when paying attention to where it starts and where it's now, but each album added new elements and ditched others in a way that those following the evolution of the band were not overtly shocked by it. It's possibly worth investigating those missing links a bit. Also, and for reference, they were about 17-18 when this was recorded.

[@progperljungman8218]

Love this comment! So true!

[@thegrimner]

@@progperljungman8218 yeah, it's kind of what makes watching these reactions so fun for me, I was aware of the way Katatonia progressed, but it only really clicked how much that progression revolved Jonas maturing as a musician as I was typing the comment and Bryan commented on the separation of the two halves of the band. And it's a lovely story on many aspects; other bands would simply ditch the "weakest" link, but these two guys essentially stuck together and worked around his limitations until they became strengths. Jonas grew into a tremendous vocalist who is largely responsible for Katatonia's music sounding as vulnerable and intimate as it does.

[@HateMich]

Lovely analysis, totally agree. "The Cure doing doom metal" 🔝🥰 for the "Discouraged Ones - Tonight's Decision - Last Fair Deal Gone Down era".

[@CriticalReactions]

Thanks for that. I love how the band shifted around roles within the group as they grew. It's a neat way to get outside of their own comforts and explore different sounds.

[@thegrimner]

@@CriticalReactions It was less conscious exploration and a bit of a punk/youth thing. Teenagers starting up bands without ever having picked up an instrument and only after a while discovering they were not quite great at it. Fun fact, nearly everyone in Dimmu Borgir started playing something else; Singer was the drummer, drummer was the guitar player, and no one wanted to be the bassist. Don't know how it is now, and maybe Per can comment further if he's still following the convo, but scandinavian countries used to have really good social programs to incentivise artistic expression. So, many of these guys began forming up bands because they were subsidized. Which explains how young many of them were when they debuted, the insane amount of bands showing in a relatively unpopulated area of the world and how quickly the best of them eventually became proficient.

[@noneofyourbusiness6326]

Katatonia are probably the most significant band in my history as a music lover. Yes their sound has changed a lot over the years, but all their albums are fantastic, & I have loved & eagerly await all their new music since I discovered them back in 1996.

[@sugarymushroom]

You have no idea how happy I am to see you react to this song. Never did I ever think I would see anyone react to this song. Love this song and this album.

[@MaaZeus]

Not a fan of Katatonia's current stuff but I also never checked out their very early works. Apparently I should though because I did like this a lot. Sure they were obviously "green" as musicians and probably not all ideas are stringed together perfectly but I love this kind of imperfection/roughness. Lots of enthusiasm to make something work with the tools and skills they have even if the end result was probably not as good as they may have envisioned in their heads. But that is fine, it adds character that is very absent in most modern and overly polished recordings.

[@atides33]

Everyone has their own opinion, but I think this is not the best choice of song to represent the origins of Katatonia. I love this song, but it isn't a neat fit thematically with the rest of the album. "Gateways of Bereavement" would have been my first choice. But honestly, the entire album is an underappreciated gem in the history of metal. The atmosphere and emotion that this group was able to create as high school students is awe-inspiring. To this day, I haven't heard another guitarist make his instrument cry like Anders does on that first album (Anders himself has not even reproduced it since).

[@Kraakesolv]

Agree.

[@ysteinnilsen699]

I think I most enjoy Katatonia at their moodiest. I was a moody teenager and young adult and Discouraged Ones and Tonight's Decision plays into that melancholy big time. Also have a soft spot of nostalgia for The Great Cold Distance as that was when I discovered Katatonia. Still enjoy their newer stuff from time to time. _Tonight I'm nothing, it doesn't matter where I've been_

[@progperljungman8218]

The "last" song suggested for the poll was from the (now) second to last album though. Since their last came out just after the poll... (If you didn't exchange it after learning about the brand new one: Sky Void of Stars)

[@CriticalReactions]

Yup, we're checking out one from their brand new album tomorrow!

[@progperljungman8218]

@@CriticalReactions Great!

[@MaartenT]

I remember listening to them when I was relatively new to metal (I basically started out with Doom Metal with clean vocals) and started to get used to harsh vocals (with bands like Katatonia, My Dying Bride, Winter, early Evoken before getting into some funeral doom). I remember mainly listening to this album and one of their demo's before this album (which has a rawer version of this track if I remember correctly), but I think these might have actually been the first somewhat blackened vocals I ever liked (together with the first Dolorian album) and it probably pushed me to get more into Black Metal later together with discovering Folk Metal and the more blackened side of that genre. I didn't like their second album as much as this one, which is more Death/Doom, not sure why though because it is very well regarded. Maybe I should give that one an other try (even if I listen way less to Doom Metal nowadays). And I clearly have listened to this one a lot because I haven't listened to this album in at least 10 if not 15 years and I tend to not listen to lyrics too much, but I still remembered some lyrics passages in this one. I really enjoyed hearing this one again, I remember it being a favourite back then. Edit: Btw, Bryan, I know it sounds insane, but it has been 30 years, not 20 (that actually makes me feel old since I am close to an other 10 years older now).

[@CriticalReactions]

My brain obviously couldn't deal with feeling so old so it subtracted a whole decade from my math 😅 Neat evolution of your preferences and how you explored the different realms of metal!

[@Mutterschwein]

Dance of December Souls--vocals so brutal that it ruined Jonas's vocal chords forever lmao it's a shame that the new Katatonia stuff don't even remotely sound similar to this and Brave Murder Day.

[@PanzerforstRECS]

This album had a massive impact on me back then. It was a perfect mix of aggression, romanticism and melancholy. I just realized, the picking at 4:36 sounds a lot like Lib Ed. by New Model Army...

[@alexduca3213]

This album is 30 years old btw, not 20;)

[@annodomini1991]

Nice someone reacted to something from their first album.

[@vladradulescu6113]

one of the big four of death/doom metal. Of course I love it.

[@MaaZeus]

Oh, and I have to add, IMO the alternating echo effect you mentioned is much more jarring with headphones than it is with speakers. With speakers your left ear still hears the echo on the right and vice versa and it feels more "natural" so to speal but with headphones the effect is hard panned into extreme left and right and it makes your brain hurt if you try to follow it. 😅

[@CriticalReactions]

That's an excellent note that I often forget about. There's a lot of earlier music that was designed for mono (or even stereo after a certain point) speaker setups and not headphones and this could be one of those.

[@jcortest]

First reaction with very little commentary haha, i love Katatonia and i love your videos too.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Funnily enough, I just listened to this album in my effort to do another Katatonia discog run before the new album was released, so I heard this track very recently. Personally, I get why a lot of people who love death-doom prefer the first two albums to what came afterwards, but my general opinion is that Katatonia is better as a proggy, gothy, alt-rock band than they were a death-doom band, if for the sole reason that I don't think there are many bands that sound like the later Katatonia while I feel like it's not difficult to find other death-doom bands going for a similar aesthetic to Dance of December Souls and (to a lesser extent) Brave Murder Day (Paradise Lost is a notable influence, My Dying Bride a notable contemporary). It could also be that I think Katatonia have really refined their craft a lot over time; here you can hear the roughness in, eg, the abrupt transitions between sections that aren't well-connected with each other. I do often wonder what would've happened if Katatonia had continued down the death-doom root but would've incorporated more of the alt, gothic, and prog influences; I can imagine something like the direction that Opeth went in just before they dropped the growls. All that said, I DO still think their first album is very death-doom with a lot of great riffs and a really potent, enveloping atmosphere; I just find myself wishing for more refinement in the craft and their signature layering. As for Katatonia having eras, that's very true. I think it could be argued they have 3 or 4 depending on how you divide them. Their first two albums were the only "death-doom" albums, though even on their second album they were stating to transition to alt. rock/metal musically while still using growls. By Discouraged Ones (their album) they'd gone pure alt. rock but with the consistently melancholic tonality of goth rock; in fact, Discouraged Ones may get my vote for the most depressing album ever. After that I think they slowly start getting more progressive, more layered, more subtle in their songcraft; I'm not exactly sure where you'd put the divisions even though there's a definite evolution with their past few albums being their MOST complex/progressive. I might put Viva Emptiness as the third division point with Last Fair Deal Gone Down being their last "pure" alt. rock/metal album.

[@HateMich]

I don't remember anything sounding like Brave Murder Day. A huge influence on all the melanchonic extreme metal, till nowdays. Last 3 albums are the 4th era.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

@@HateMich Brave Murder Day is basically alt. rock/metal with growls. It's not all that dissimilar from Discouraged Ones except for the growls, but in terms of the music it's much closer to it than December Souls.

[@HateMich]

@@jonathanhenderson9422 songs' structures are much different from DO, more like DS. Some "waterfall" riffs are similar, but is not just a matter of voice.

[@solinarisolinari6856]

I always thought this song was about someone so pissed off at God that he ended up performing some ritual to kill him. The whole "I am God" part is done in a mocking voice, so I assumed he was mocking god at that point. Btw, Anathema has very similar origins.

[@mateo_metal666]

I was just listening to this song haha so good katatonia to me is the staple of doom metal

[@jarunia17]

I only listened to this album like once some time ago, I vastly prefer their modern sound, especially the album "The Fall of Hearts". "The Great Cold Distance" is also excellent if less prog than what they put out nowadays. Very fun to drum to as well.

[@_bats_]

I really hate to break this to you, but 1993 was 30 years ago. We're old.

[@neck_acrobatics]

No idea who chose that song (worst one on the album) but I want to hug them and tell them that they've failed us, early-Katatonia-fans, greatly. Also, I disagree with Bryan (I will not elaborate)

[@williamreynolds3487]

Despite how bad the vocals are, I really enjoy this album.

[@darrenbooker8144]

Dan Swano ii good, he also played drums

[@williamreynolds3487]

@@darrenbooker8144 he wasn’t the lead vocalist. Clearly I’m not talking about him.