If there has been one album that has to this point defined
my 2017, it would be Katatonia’s The
Great Cold Distance. Another one of those albums that I heard long, long
ago and mostly brushed off, something with this album clicked for me early in
the year, and has not left me since. Katatonia began life as a doomy Death
metal outfit from Sweden, the band morphed over time to a more moody,
depressive rock, Gothic metal group, where they’ve done largely excellent work
since. 2006 brought this album. I heard it back then and really liked a few of
the songs, “My Twin” being the one that I truly remember, but ultimately panned
the rest of the album without giving it too much thought.
Years later, in a fairly sullen mood, the wheel of my iPod
stopped first on Katatonia, and then on this album. What happened next was
really nothing short of magic.
The Great Cold
Distance is apparently the album the band plays songs from most live, and
it’s not hard to understand why. The more difficult question would be why the
band doesn’t just play songs from this album. That is not to say that this is
the pinnacle of the Katatonia catalog, as this listener is always going to be
most partial to Tonight’s Decision,
but The Great Cold Distance is a
start to finish experience, with its weaker tracks essentially being guilty of
not being the stronger ones. Part of the bands’ move away from their doomy
death metal sound to the signature depressive rock style, the album works
terrifically as a whole listening experience, each song worthy of continuous
and repeated listens.
If the record has any serious issues, it would be that some
parts of it have difficulty separating themselves from the real gold. The
second half of the album does get a little bit indistinguishable, as songs,
while good on their own, do tend to muddy together a bit. While I can name the
first five tracks in order, after “Consternation,” the only other track name I
can recall is the ninth and most outstanding one, “July.” The albums’ first
half is the opposite, with each track being distinctive and unique, with the
exception of “Soil’s Song,” the one that ends up being kind of meh. So
basically, the problem is that, while all the songs are good and fit the
overall flow and personality of the album, they aren’t all “July” or
“Deliberation”. The aforementioned “Soil’s Song” being probably the best and
most obvious example of this: if there were one skippable track on the album,
it would be “Soil’s Song,” whose major shortcoming is that it is neither
“Deliberation” nor “My Twin,” the songs that surround it.
The songs in general have some good moments lyrically as
well, although taken out of their musical context, they are a bit teenaged emo
poetry. To be expected for the genre, really. Songs of love lost and life being
lost, there are some real clever moments and lines that will get stuck in the
ear, occasionally providing those lyrical gems that are so simple, yet speak a
volume to the listener. At times, I’ll catch lyrics from the album drifting
through my head and have this alternating response to them: occasionally
brilliant, occasionally cringe-worthy. But, again, it’s doomy, depressive
metal, and pretty much all songs of any genre that work for that sullen vibe
are embarrassing and lame, so this isn’t a thing that can be held against this
set of tracks. Musically, everything is melodic yet punchy, nothing veering too
hard into softer territories that it doesn’t still have some rock to it, with
some really good riffs and melodies.
There is a terrific overall melancholy to this record, from
first to last note, which is the basic Katatonia oeuvre, so it should be
expected. But The Great Cold Distance lays
it on thick, and never relents. It is the sound of those random, cool summer
nights, or that spectral chill in the air once August comes, reminding us that
Fall is imminent, with earlier dark and the existential knowledge that, as
seasons go, Fall is the beginning of the death of another year, following Summer’s
vibrant life. It is the sound of looking out your window in late December when
the street is empty of cars because everyone’s gone home for the holidays, and
you realize that, even though it has been dark for a while and all the
streetlights are on, it’s only 6.30pm. I hate it when music reviews get like
this and start using these allusions and stuff, but music does transport us to
other times or places, and this album certainly does it for me. No mean feat, I’d
say, as the retreat of Summer has begun, and so I am tweaking my iPod roster to
contain more frigid Black metal for the coming cooler times, and The Great Cold Distance is currently the,
I underline “the” for emphasis, record that evokes the general atmosphere that I’m
seeking by doing so.
Personally, it’s been a strange year, with a lot of bizarre
and difficult feelings spurred by matters both worldly and metaphysical, and
for much of it, there hasn’t been any place to go with them. So it ends up
being records like The Great Cold Distance
that offer the most comfortable solace, not a way through those woods, but a
comforting sense of it being ok that everything sucks. Passed over years ago, that February morning when I at random gave the record another try could end up being the most important accidental decision of my year.
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