In recent history, Swedish progressive metallers Opeth have sky rocketed to the upper echelons of the metal world in terms of recognition and success; it seems surprising that fellow countrymen Katatonia never reached such pinnacles particularly with their later albums seeming more accessible (no growls and shorter songs) than the aforementioned. Now with their eight monolith of melancholy, ‘Night is the New Day’, it looks like Katatonia are ready to seize the vast levels of acknowledgement they never quite appropriated previously. Frontman, Jonas Renske discusses the components of this favourite album of many from last year and the return of highly acclaimed death metallers Bloodbath.
Despite having a title that people wouldn’t immediately associate with the newest Katatonia full-length, ‘Night is the New Day’ shimmers with Katatonia’s trademarks: concrete, urban textures, tides of remorse and a voraciously consuming hopelessness. “It’s not super different,” Renske remarks indifferently. “It’s just that every time we do a new album, we want to do better songs and experiment with sounds and textures and layers, always trying to do something even better than the last one. It’s still a Katatonia album.” Similarly to the rest of the band’s recorded observations, the album received laudations from all over. “I was super happy with the album when it was ready but the response has been overwhelming - great reviews but also the fans are very much into it. I couldn’t ask for more.” Their sold out London headlining show, with Long Distance Calling and Swallow the Sun as supports, is testament to this and according to Renske, the entire tour has been particularly fruitful. “It’s been more packed than we could have expected. Everybody’s really happy with it so far.”
Everybody is indeed happy with the record but some fans have found the name of the Swedes’ latest effort rebelling against the orthodox Katatonia titles. Perhaps it’s the ironic commentary that has never been prevailing in the band’s inventory that comes as a shock. “To me, it represents the kind of state that the world is in today. It’s kind of a dark place, economically and at least here in the Western world, people are obsessed with materialistic stuff, the rich and famous. I think it’s not good.” Additionally out of tune with Katatonia’s aesthetics is the first video off the album, ‘Day and Then the Shade’, a video that would be far more accommodating to the music of a group like Evanescence. The video frequently receives negative comments on Youtube in spite of director Lasse Hoille who has produced videos for Porcupine Tree and Opeth . “It was because we were in a hurry to deliver a video to the record label and we were on tour at the time and we didn’t have any time to come up with anything but Lasse – we met him in Copenhagen – was willing to do it without the band around. He’s a great photographer and he knows what to do with cameras. We just said go ahead and then we continued to take him up for the video. It’s a bit unusual for Katatonia but I think it works. There’s some beautiful scenery.”
Fortunately for the languishers, the band made another video for ’The Longest Year’, which has just been released as a single (from the eponymous EP). The video is much more representative of Katatonia’s soundscape and a compliment to the band. “We wanted to do something more in the style of Katatonia in this video because we had the time to get involved. I was discussing with Charlie (the guy who did this video) and he pretty much had the same kind of idea so he just went with it. Not really beautiful sceneries but the suburban houses. It’s a really beautiful place; they have all these statues. I think it goes well with the album cover.”
It’s not just the new album that Renkse has to worry about this year. His other band, Bloodbath, is returning to the live circuit and with a sizeable portion of the Katatonia line up appearing in Bloodbath, it’s a wonder how the bands manage to co-exist. “Bloodbath isn’t as busy as Katatonia now but we have agreed to do some festivals this summer and some of them, we are both playing with Katatonia and Bloodbath so it’s going to be a busy time. It’s fun to have the band coming to a live environment because we’ve only done three shows so far in the band’s whole career.”Bloodbath’s visceral death metal is a far cry from Katatonia’s emotionally driven shoegaze. How does Renske’s attitude differ live between these two acts? “I think Bloodbath for me is more difficult. I play the bass instead of singing. The singing thing is more mental – I can do good gigs and bad gigs but with the bass you have to be technically correct all the time so I just think about it instead of feel. I think that’s a big difference.” In 2008, Bloodbath released their latest album ‘The Fathomless Misery’, their first album in four years. “I think it’s cool. It’s showcasing some different styles. Maybe it’s more extreme and up to date than the old school stuff that we did but I think every album will be different, depending on what we did last time.” Many musicians take short breaks from one band to focus on another. When returning to the band they put on hiatus, the sound remarkably changes, usually because of ‘maturity’ but Bloodbath sound as vicious and rabid as ever. “It’s always fun to do a Bloodbath song. It’s all about having fun. With Katatonia it’s different. It’s such an important thing, it’s more like philosophy. In Bloodbath, it’s churning out riffs and trying to make it make sense. “
Renske’s positive attitude runs contrary to the morose melodies of Katatonia and the destructive hymns of Bloodbath. How about a cheery Katatonia tune? Laughing, Renkse remarks: “No, because I hate happy music. It’s just not creatively challenging.” Some things never change.
