Brave Murder Day

It is not very surprising that I ran into this record during a phase where I used to hunt for doom death and progressive death like sound, anything in the lines of Opeth, My Dying Bride and Moonsorrow would have pleased me a lot. I do believe that Mikael Åkerfeldt has one of the well rounded and deep growls i have heard in death metal and one day just like that i realized that he has done vocals for another band from Sweden called Katatonia, this triggered me to give a listen to Brave Murder Day.

The band sounded nothing like Opeth, they were more dampened a tad more depressing and much more weary. Even Åkerfeldt sounded different, very different, the growls were not as deep as i would have expected, either I saw a new versatile facet to his vocal abilities or it was just the effect of production. The intensely deep growls were toned down and replaced with more lengthy dry sound which lies somewhere between a scream and growl, definitely tending towards the growling end of the spectrum. The shift in vocal style mirrors the compositions which are not like adrenaline pumping aggressive assaults of riffage but dragged out and slowed down dreary riffs which monotonously resonates and lazily shifts its pace and the flow, quite contrasting to the progressive death style.

The whole record could be split into two halves, each having its own feel, the first two songs “Brave” and “Murder” perfectly fits the description given in the above paragraph about sluggish compositions, really gloomy and creates an ambiance of drizzling and cloudy mornings. The more sinister feel is subdued till we hit the second half of the record. “Day” is a very slow track with clean vocals which bridges the two contrasting halves of the Brave Murder Day. The point where “Rainroom” starts you realize that the record is moving in a slightly more aggressive direction, the growls are literally unleashed; they are more on the face and louder. The drums get more prominent, in some parts the incessant double bass pounding is heard quite noticeably, sometimes interleaved with slow guitar strumming, growls and leads. “Rainroom” is quite refreshing, heavy and probably the best track of the record, the constant background guitar strumming fills all the crevices and makes the sound sufficiently dense. Couple of minutes into the song and the heaviness withers down a bit but it is more than compensated by the pain invoking extreme vocals, the song slowly build up the lost momentum which runs into some brilliant vocal parts culminating in drums tailored for head banging. “Rainroom is just the kind of song which makes an album rise above its own deserving quality rating and makes it move into a must listen record category in its genre. When the song tapers off to an end everything seem to pale in comparison to the reverberating Åkerfeldt growls of “I saw it end long before it ended, Life itself turned pale and ended”.

“12” starts of slowly and halfway into the song it truly shifts its style in sync with the essence of Brave Murder Day, the heavy rhythm guitar parts with growls are interleaved with clean guitar strumming and slow drums. This pattern is followed throughout the second half till the end where the sound gets really slow and tends to the funereal side of doom, the slow guitar and the growling vocals are a tad too slow for the progressive death fans. “Endtime” too starts off with slow lead guitars which shifts to old school heavy metal rhythm sound and again goes back to clean guitar leading up to a more heavier sound. It hardly matters how this last song goes, by this time the listener would have either got into the “Brave Murder Day” or would have trashed it by now. The song ends with this constant drumming, real crude typical deathly vocals ending with clean guitar and stops abruptly as if someone just snapped the power cord.

The lyrics are nightmarish, surreal and disheartening, very much blends with the style of music and Åkerfeldt does complete justice to the composer, lyricist and the production crew with his point blank blasts of growling which takes the listener to ethereal depths of doom. As the record progresses his vocals also evolve with the compositions and towards the end the depth in the growls get more and more audible. Renkse’s style of writing in this record is a bit quirky, the lyrics seem like bundled up lines, as if some connecting words went missing, as if the order of lines all got jumbled up. All this idiosyncrasies and the words just work fine, it screams of pain all the way, I love the fact that he never went overboard by needlessly trying to rhyme or by trying to do “poetic justice” to the album. The record reeks of crudeness and pain in lyrics, of dreary hopelessness in compositions and of grim pale growls in vocals, all of this concocts up wonders when Brave Murder Day is played on a drizzling Sunday morning backed with sufficient quantities of alcohol which will eventually transpire into a beautifully wasted day.

Brave Murder Day made probably one of the most charismatic releases in the doom death metal arena. The music can be definitely considered as one of the classic releases in the genre. One of the characteristic qualities of the album is its hypnotizing melodies. In fact, the main philosophy of this record is quality over the quantity. The songs do not have many riffs, yet music is not boring, but very dramatic, and emotional. Certainly, some people, the music may appear too repetitive, but it works in a magnificent way. The melodies are delicate dark masterpieces which stick in the listener head for days.

The music has a tendency to put the listener in a trance like state mood using simple yet effective melodic foundations done using lead guitar melodies, and harsh misanthropic vocals as the central instruments. The drumming, base, rhythm guitar and other effects provide groundwork for everything else, a certain wall of sound. Somewhat thin production give the additional bleak, and hollow atmosphere to the record makes the dark melodies, and growls even more effective.


Track one ‘Brave’ has an excellent flow, with magnificent lead guitar melodies in a minor scale. The atmosphere is absolutely astonishing. Second song ‘Murder’ has a slightly faster simple riffing, and Katatonia still performs the track live, which points out to its catchiness. Furthermore, tracks ‘Rainroom’, and ‘12’ have an Opeth like harmonies which sounds very fitting, and balanced. In my view, the ‘Rainroom’ may be the strongest track here, since the riffs, the flow, the vocals, and the dynamics are done perfectly; the clean break, followed by the misanthropic melodic foundations is an example of a delicate intelligent songwriting which makes the song so magnificent. Third track seems to be a pretty useless repetitive synthesized pop song which sounds out of place. I typically skip it, and enjoy the gorgeous ‘Rainroom’ few extra times. The song is absolutely fantastic with a heart breaking harmonies, excellent placed beats, and brutal vocals mixed with the emotional clean ones. Certainly the album should be experienced from the beginning to end, because it has a storytelling like quality. The story is pretty depressive one, but somehow it converts negative energy into a positive one, which was probably the main goal of the musicians.

In conclusion, the ‘Brave Murder Day’ is a good album, which is considered a classic in the metal underground. It seems to have a melodic doom death metal tag, but in my view the term may be contingent since many groups mix things up. I would just call it a dark metal classic. If you haven’t heard it, it is a must have for any metal head, as an important release in the metal history. Katatonia are the people, who write a honest emotional music with feelings.

I know Burzum kind of brought the repetitive/hypnotic riff pattern into the frame, but I really see this album as the one that solidified it. A plethora of bands would utilize this technique, and even though only two come to mind as I write this sentence (early Drudkh and Rapture), I know there are tons out there. Anyway, this is a step-down from Katatonia’s debut, but it excels in departments where that one fell short. For one, it’s much more entrancing - putting you in mindset that pretty much makes you lazier than you should be. My own copy is the Avantgarde pressing, so the production is way shittier than the re-mastered one released a decade later. Yeah you can read a short summary about it on the album page – I passed off such a comment as “bitching” and got the original regardless… bad move on my part.

For a few years I had this album on my computer in all it’s richness, but the second I popped in my copy of the original in the car… well, I was pissed. Not only did I have to crank the volume at twice the level to hear it at the same capacity as my other CDs, but it still sounds thinner than a strip of gum. The drums were metallic and icy, the distortion of the guitars cut like knives, and the opulence was quite lacking. I won’t entirely bog down the review to bitching about how bad the original production was, but let me just get it out of the way and recommend that you pick up the remastered copy. It isn’t anything to die over, but the remastered release just brings out the music much more than the original.

You see that dead bird on the cover drenched in purple monochrome? Let that sum up the album for you: dead, dreary, decayed, reflective, and melancholic. Åkerfeldt of Opeth accompanies the songs; before you go on about how much he sucks, I’d just like to point out that he doesn’t pussify the music by trying to make it sound more like Opeth. He merely handles growling duties and I applaud him for how much effort he puts forth to make these growls sound tortured, mutilated, gutted, and very complementary towards the general tone of the album. Renkse provides the clean vocals, which are rather off-key compared to his later performances. He handles it rather subtly though, since they only appear on one song in their entirety and in rare occasions elsewhere. It’s suitable for the music on display, but the album could have been characterized perfectly without them as well. He’d focus them much more on subsequent albums, but compared to the growls they only play a minor role in the outlook of things this album wishes to resurrect.

I keep forgetting that this album has two guitarists, since I always figured Blackheim produced the best part of the music all by himself like on the debut. Bass duties he handles like a pro – on the original pressing it’s hard to hear his lines, but on the remastered version it sounds as thick as chocolate and helps give more power back to the guitars while filling the air with more vibrance.

I’m pretty sure I’m not mistaken when I calculate the amount of riffs per song ranging from two to five. A band like Necrophagist could never utilize a song with two riffs properly, but Katatonia churn out five of them (“Day” just has showering clean guitars) that paint a picture of death in your head. They string them out quite well, and yes they go on and on but somehow I don’t really get tired of them. This formula sounds great in the car where I’ll be driving and the song will just keep a consistent rhythm that I can follow. The first track may be ten minutes, but it’ll feel short since the same pattern is repeated and the riffs begin to blend in sequence. The sound isn’t evil, but remorseful, mournful, and of a forlorn guilt that will go unresolved since such is now in the time of death.

The cold fact is that the guitars don’t need to go beyond their simplicity, since this method works – it works it works it works it works get it through your head it works. The result of Blackheim and Norrman’s doomy / melodic playing style has brought into the fold an atmosphere worth keeping and a state of mind worth visiting. Hearing “Brave,” “Rainroom,” and the intro to “12” are moments of bliss and tranquility that I find myself headbanging to with more compliance than most any thrash band. Even the drumming can be considered typical of novices in their rather routine playing, but once again it works in the environment created by the guitars – let nature develop itself without ruination… I’m particularly fond of the double bass, which even on the original sounds beefy and addictive. However, the cymbals and toms on the original sound vastly inferior, since they’re very thin, metallic, and hollow sounding. I can’t say that much about the remastered version, but hearing them in the car kind makes me wish they were a neutral party.

As much as I suck as conclusions, let’s just end it with me telling you to check this album out. You don’t have to buy it, but at least give it a listen. There are plenty of bands that refined this style, but Katatonia were the first to my knowledge that hammered it in the scene. Again, if this statement is incorrect then just message me politely and I’ll be happy to give the proper band credit in this review.

Come on now. This isn't really metal. It hasn't got any riffs! It's just a bunch of dawdling, repetitive chords. The guitars have a nice, heavy black or death metal tone, and there are harsh vocals, but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on me. This doesn't sound like metal.

Now, on the one hand, it would be pretty ignorant and elitist for me to count that as a flaw, and to claim that metal is inherently superior to all other forms of music. On the other hand, I don't want to lie to my reading audience, so I'm in something of a bind.

Katatonia have changed considerably over the course of their career, and to their credit, they seem to have not ticked off their fans all that badly in the process. Lately they're more of a straight rock band – I think? I don't keep careful tabs on Katatonia. But even back here on their debut, they're pretty rock, resembling a heavier Fields of the Nephilim – I think? I don't keep careful tabs on Fields of the Nephilim either.

Regardless, this album is a sort of link between metal and depressing rock music. Depressive black metal seems to have pulled some songwriting techniques from this album, if you want to consider playing one riff for five minutes, then another one for three a “songwriting technique.”

Okay, that's not entirely fair. And it's not as if your typical black metal band is throwing in a million riffs per song in the first place. Brave Murder Day is somewhat distinctive for having songs that, by design, go precisely nowhere... they just sort of hang right there in the present, until the present presumably gets boring enough for the band to start doing something else. “12” starts off with the best couple minutes of the album, some cool intertwining guitar melodies... and then they stop that and do something else. It's annoying because I want it to go somewhere or do something or... something, but it's just the intro. It doesn't sum up to anything.

The music is too passive and indifferent for any transition to feel abrupt, which is the strength and the problem.

What the band does, they are admittedly good at; it kills all depressive black metal pretty dead, for whatever limited bragging rights that might be worth, and fairs well against the classic albums by the British Big Three (My Dying Bride, Paradise, Anathema) as well. After letting go of the feeling that they could be doing a lot more with the style, it's a pretty enjoyable album, and well-produced, the biggest annoyance, to me anyway, being Mikael Åkerfeldt's vocals, which sound exactly as they do on the first two Opeth albums, and ludicrously overbearing against the mellow guitar work.

Not really my thing, anyway. More my thing than their later music, though.

Jonas Renske’s vocals on Dance Of December Souls were nothing short of amazing. At points it sounded as if he was tearing his own throat apart to achieve the sound they desired; in fact it appears my little metaphor has an element of truth to it, thus the absence of his harsh voice on this album. If you were to put a hypothetical scenario to me involving Mikael Åkerfeldt filling in for his close friend Jonas on vocals and asked me what I thought the musical outcome would be, I would probably respond rather pessimistically. I would expect some horrible mishmash of his monotonous voice, straining to keep up with building emotions of Dance of December era Katatonia, or at best a mediocre album compared to it‘s predecessor. But I would have had no idea what Katatonia had in mind for this album.

Åkerfeldt, whatever you may feel about his other musical endeavours, has an impressive amount of control as a vocalist, which is probably why he is still in functioning order and Renske is not. Control is indeed the order of the day on this album. There is a substantial amount of doom-metal added into the mix this time around, and because of this Åkerfeldt’s vocals work perfectly. The songs do not build into throat destroying climax as they did on the previous album, but rather plod along on what are essentially minimalistic chord structures, with Katatonia’s trademark melodic leads played on top. The problem with minimalism, especially in doom-death is you run the risk of simply being boring, two things save Brave Murder Day from ever approaching this fate.

The first is composition. Every song is very well put together, and I’ve yet to ever feel a single riff on the album was simply their to tied me over until the band got their act together. Another is the guitar tone. It might seem a bit anal to obsess over guitar tone as one of the major points of an album, but in the end it’s a much easier thing to quantify than the vague ghost of decent song writing. Somehow to me, especially on many doom-death albums, the guitar sounds as if it’s resigned to some empty sonic wasteland between the vocals above and the bass far below, but the guitar tone on this album does no such thing. It manages to fill the entire song in a wall a noise, in short the guitar is this album. Anyone who listens to Brave Murder Day and says “you know I really dig that bass line” is a liar.

Another factor that lets this album sit above the rest of Katatonia’s discography is the level of diversity. While it manages to be a fully ‘metal’ album, the band have begun to venture into the dangerous world of clean vocals - with surprisingly pleasing results. You can hear the beginnings of Discouraged Ones in songs like Day, or the clean passages in Rainroom, without the band letting go of their metal roots as they would later on.

It’s hard to discuss a Katatonia album without throwing around words like “emotion”, “atmosphere” and claiming that it sounds like “ the dark city streets of a post-apocalyptic dystopian netherworld” but no review can ever really convey those things, and it’s those very things that set this album up for such a high score.

Not every band creates a masterpiece let alone a landmark album. Most only squeak by with a "good" or "great" recording that while admired by many, doesn't gain the cult status and the inevitable debate that others do. This in short, was Katatonia's finest hour.

This could be considered the birth of modern Doomdeath Metal as it doesn't follow the path of the Peaceville three. The aforementioned were crunch heavy, riff happy and structured. Katatonia on the other hand opted to open chord over 90% of this recording as well as repeat the same few riffs per song avoiding the hallmarks of what is now traditional Doomdeath.

The production is good enough for what is here. Apparently this album was written completely in the studio, perhaps causing the minimalistic characteristics more out of necessity than intention. The guitars are not all that heavy but they are menacing in a somber sort of way. There are leads woven throughout every song. The songs have a semi-droning feel to them. It also sounds as if they are in drop 'D' tuning.

The bass follows the guitars but this only adds to the downtrodden feeling. The drums are more or less played on hi-hat, bass and snare with little to no variation. This is also used to good effect as anything more would have caused this album to loose its sorrow filled vibe.

The vocals, provided by Opeth’s Mikael fit the music’s dreary attitude nicely. He sings clean on one song but the rest are his trademarked growls/shrieks. The lyrics are simplistic and depressing.

Over all this is a very emotionally stark album. Its bleakness filling the listener with dreams of oblivion. This is the album where the band developed its signature melancholy guitar sound. This album (like Paradise Losts' 'Gothic' before it) gave way to countless copycats and sound alikes even to this day. If there are any bad marks to be given it would be the band should have continued on in this style. (Granted 'October Tide' continues this style to an extent, it’s not the same).

This is a very recommended album to Doomdeath/Doom Metal fans as it’s truly a masterwork of simplicity and sadness.

How this album isn't considered by many to be one of metal's greatest masterpieces, I will never know. Unappreciated in the sense that it isn't heralded to as high of a degree as Mayhem's over-rated De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, or Ulver's great Bergtatt, I still come back to this album when I consider the greatest underground metal albums of all time. While hard to classify musically, as it’s too slow to be black metal and too fast to be doom metal, that’s partially what lends to it’s greatness. With an utterly razor-sharp guitar sound, the monotonous, numbing drum lines, and the brutality of Akerfeldt's vocals, I simply cannot imagine anything darker.

The atmosphere created by all the aforementioned traits is absolutely suffocating. I've already mentioned the razor sharp sound of the guitars, which is achieved to an unbelievable level of perfection. I can't think of a better sound to match the lead riffs, which operate on delightfully dissonant scales. Bass doesn't play a major role, but it doesn't have to; I am often irritated by a lack of bass, but here, anything that distracted from the sound of the guitars would be a nuisance, hence the simplicity of both the bass and the drums. Many have complained about the simplicity and the repetitiveness of the drumming, but I feel it lends heavily to the numbing atmosphere of the album.

Another aspect many have complained about are the clean vocals of Jonas Renske in the track 'Day', calling them whiny and angst-ridden. I heavily disagree, as Renske's voice is far too mature to come off as whiny. Instead, his vocals come off as cynical and weary, like a man who has spent far too much time in the company of death. This track is like his musings on a life wasted, and what could have been. Many say this song detracts from the album; I say it is one of the album's high points.

The album then launches into it's most aggressively dark track, Rainroom. Perhaps the strongest track of the entire album, with Akerfeldt's vocals at their most powerful, and the riffs at their sharpest. The lead riff at 1:45 is amongst the most powerful metal riffs that I've had the pleasure to hear, accompanied by Akerfeldt's despairing vocals as he screams the lines "I saw it end, long before it ended! Life itself turned pale!" It's an incredibly powerful passage and the defining high point of the album. The track then breaks down into a slower, wonderfully bleak passage, with Jonas Renske's clean vocals appearing once more, sounding even more cynical and tired than in the previous track. It's an absolutely killer track, one that must be heard.

And of course, all the other tracks on the album are similarly outstanding. Brave is as good of an album opener as any, instantly enveloping the listener in the album's bleak, numbing aesthetic. And the riff at the 3 minute mark of Brave is breath-taking. Murder is the most eerie track of the album, with strange lyrics that seem to be a disoriented poem written by a madman. 12 is packed full of killer riffs, and an interesting thing I've noticed; there are exactly twelve passages before the song comes to it's climax. Endtime is honestly my least favorite track of the album, but it's hardly a weak track. Where Rainroom is the climax, Endtime is the falling action of the album. But I feel it somewhat fails as an album ending. It would have lead beautifully into the track "For Funerals to Come" from their '95 EP of the same name, which would certainly be the ultimate finale for this album. But I digress.

Overall, as I stated before, I strongly believe this to be among metal’s finest offerings. With this album, Katatonia have created an atmosphere of palpable darkness that few other bands have pulled off before or since. While it should be hailed in the likes of the aforementioned albums, it is merely appreciated mostly by fans of doom metal. I suppose its black metal elements are too few and far between to appeal to the majority of the underground. Nonetheless, it’s a brilliant album that should never be forgotten. With the exception of the Sounds of Decay EP, released a year later, this was Katatonia’s last foray into the truly dark and underground. I suppose they realized that, having perfected their sound with this album, it was time to move on...

Katatonia's "Brave Murder Day" is a real classic.

To me BMD does not sound much like doom metal, so it is hard to classify it as such, but it certainly fits some of doom metal's characteristics. I think it would be better described as dark metal because it is doomy, gloomy, melodic, and has some death/black influences as well. Some may disagree with that classification, but it doesn't really matter.

The song structures on BMD are simple, but well-constructed. The opener, "Brave", opens with some feedback to a midpaced guitar riff with equally paced drums. After awhile the music gradually emerges into a different pace with another excellent riff. All the while Michael Akerfeldt's vocals complement the song perfectly. If you are familiar with Akerfeldt's vocal style, it is incredibly deep - just right for this type of music. "Brave" is 10-minutes long, but you'd hardly notice it because it flows so well. The second song "Murder" completely changes the pace, but you get used to it. It features Jonas Renkse on vocals for a different sound, along with slow acoustic riffs that are simple but incredibly haunting. The pace picks up again with some hard-hitting riffs on "Rainroom", some of the best on the album.

Overall the album leaves you realizing how truly talented songwriters the guys from Katatonia are. There's nothing fancy here, no fast solos, no blastbeats, no operatic vocals, no complicated rhythms (though there's nothing wrong with any of those). It's straight-up depressive metal with an excellent combination of clean and harsh vocals that make for an awesome aural experience.

If you get the American version from Century Media, it has the For Funerals To Come EP attached to it, which is excellent as well.

I can probably count on two hands the number of albums I would regard as 95% or greater. This is one of them, and its well-deserved. It is a standard by which all depressive metal bands should compare themselves.

"Brave Murder Day" is the second album and a sheer masterpiece from the Swedes known as Katatonia. This album began the transition from a Doom/Death Metal band to a Depressive Rock band that they seem to be called these days. The album features the harsh vocals of Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth, in probably his greatest work to date with Jonas Renkse on clean vocals duty. This album contains six tracks varying from 4 minutes to 10 minutes of pure unadulterated beauty.

A truly hypnotive and atmospheric release, like none other. Both Death and Doom influences and elements can be easily picked out within the music. This album is extremely repetitive, which creates a gloomy and dreary atmosphere filled to the brim with emotion. "Day" is a perfect example of this. Jonas Renkse is given the opportunity to make a solo appearance on vocals and produces something unique and quite simply beautiful. His clean and emotive vocals offer the listener the perfect chance to recapture their breathe and marvel in the sheer beauty that is Katatonia. "Day" provides the perfect insight in to what to expect from Katatonia in the near future as they begin to evolve in sound and as Jonas takes control of the vocals duty. The production is crystal clear, but quite rough and edgey. The distortion on guitars makes this more noticeable as each song plays out. Songs vary from slow tempos, to mid tempos and then again to a faster and more aggressive sound. Akerfeldt is able to emit such pain and emotion through his harsh growls, his inclusion on this album is sheer genius. Musically, this is somewhat simple and slow, but very interesting and extremely gripping.

All in all we have a dark, mysterious and emotive album on our hands. Packed with catchy riffs, accomplished drumming and stylish songs in general. Highlights include, 12, Day and Murder.

The proper classification of Brave Murder Day is a bit of an issue. It’s still not the depressive rock of Discouraged Ones, but it nonetheless sounds closer to this album than to Dance of December souls. It reminds a bit of Opeth as well, presumably because of the presence of Mikael Akerfeldt on vocals. If Dance of December Souls was black-ish doom/death metal, this time Brave Murder Day could be called slow doom-ish melodeath, because it’s basically what it is, without any judgement value. The band in the same move got rid of all the esoteric, anti-religious imagery, and if Anders Nyström is still “Blackheim” for another album, “Lord Seth” has already become the respectable Mr Jonas Renske, now writing lyrics about depression and loss rather than on “tomb spirits marching in the fields of eternal life” and the likes.

As far-fetched as it may sound to some, this album actually shows some similarities with Agalloch’s works. That means, slow beautiful music with a strong atmospheric feeling but without many variations, and only mild aggressiveness in spite of the predominant use of harsh vocals. All the songs are slow to mid-paced, faster than on the previous album, mainly built on the 4/4 beat the band will use and abuse of on their following releases. With the difference that most of the tracks still exhibit slower doom-ish breaks which add some thickness to the work and prevent it from totally falling into sheer monotony. And once again one can only bow down to some of these beautiful, utterly sad semi-acoustic atmospheric moments which were amongst the highlights of Dance of December Souls and are still amongst the ones of this release.

The icy keyboards have vanished into oblivion as well, and while some freaks who can only stand fully guitar-driven albums will rejoice, the band probably lost another of its former strengths with them.

So now, Mikael Akerfeldt took all the harsh vocals duties here, and while he’s undoubtedly a talented singer, he lives up to nothing compared to Jonas Renske on the previous album. Objectively “Lord Seth” was a far worse singer, but managed to inject passion, slight hatred, and more importantly an incredible amount of LIFE in his voice, which was occasionally more reminiscent of black metal high-pitched screams than genuine growls. By contrast Akerfeldt does some good professional growling work – nothing more. And listening to the pitiful pop-ish whining which will from now on be Renske’s trademark one can’t prevent himself from crying. Yes, this track called Day is heartbreaking, not because it is moving by any mean – it is, actually, exceptionally bad -, but because it sums well how the mighty will soon fall.

However, though lacking a bit of substance this record can still be fully enjoyed, and is still one hundred times better than anything Katatonia is releasing nowadays. Don’t expect another Without God or Velvet Thorns Of Drynwhyl, nothing on this album would ever match the crushing, cold beauty of the band’s previous works, but the longest tracks, if not stunning masterpieces, are pretty interesting to listen to. 12 especially, by far the slowest song here, carries a strong both melodic and depressive feeling, in a soft hybrid between doom and melodeath. By far my favourite track, with the opening Brave, which starts kind of boring but rapidly redeems itself as soon as the wailing doom parts begin.

... nonetheless Katatonia would have had better definitely split up after this release.

Highlights: Brave, 12

This CD represents a very interesting period of Katatonia's career. It can well be described as the middle ground between the Death/Doom of "Dance of December Souls" and the suicidal hardrock sounds of "Discouraged Ones". The ultra-long songs of their debut are replaced by songs at an average of 6 or 7 mins. Opener "Brave" clocks in as the longest at 10:16.

"Brave" is quite a good example of the songwriting embodied on this release. It's quite repetitive in a hypnotic fashion, relying on some solid Doom Metal grooves. Instead of getting boring through the repetition, these songs throw the listener right into the dark and bleak soundscape that is "Brave Murder Day".

The quite weird production values fits perfectly to the stream of music and gives it even more of an obscure edge. Especially the slower psychadelic parts strike like a light in the black thanks to the sound engineering.

Using Mikael Åkerfeldt on growled vocals is of course an absolute winner. When given some great material, he's able to growl with incredible passion and consistency. Jonas Renske's clean vocals accompany him on "Rainroom", and Renske also makes a solo appearance on "Day". His clean vocals were somewhat amateurish at this point, but still packed with emotion.

Oh, and lets not forget "Murder". This is one of the best songs I've ever heard. Such simplicity and such success. The song is built around an utterly stellar mid-tempo groove. Here Katatonia truly prove how excellent songwriters they are. Other parts are molded from the basic composition into a song with a very disturbed and bleak atmosphere.

This is quite possibly my favourite album by this band. Considering how much I enjoy Katatonia, that puts "Brave Murder Day" high on my review scale. If you haven't heard this, get a hold of it now.

I will admit that I only bought this cd because I read that Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth) did the vocals on most of the tracks of this album. I don't own any other Katatonia albums and what scattered songs from their more recent cd's that I have heard, its suffice to say that this is the only album of theirs that I plan on owning.

Luckily, this cd is quite good. To describe the music on this album is pretty easy. Each song has a couple of riffs which are each repeated a dozen times or so. While that may sound annoying, if the riffs are good to start with then its not a bad thing at all. Here we do have some good riffs. They remind me a bit of Opeth but only a little. As for the vocals, well its Mikael. If you love his growly vox for Opeth, then you will like them here. He sings on all but one song.

As for the songs: It starts with "Brave". This song has a very cool groove that will have you bobbing (although not banging) your head. The song is 10+ minutes but you wouldn't know it because it kinda keeps you in that groove for the whole song. Next is "Murder" which also has a kick ass groove and is in the same line of the first song, but not as long.

However, the album takes a bit of a dive with the next song "Day" which reminds me of Peter Gabriel, for chrissakes. Very whiny vocals by the lead singer of Katatonia. Just not very good at all.

Fortunately, the album picks up with "Rainroom". More Mikael growls and more groove. Fuck yeah!

Suprisingly, the album gets better with the next song which tends to be my fav from this album. "12" is a more epic sounding song and has some great haunitng guitar work. It has the repeating riff but then it gets into this heavy chug with Mikael's tortured vocals and then dips into more mellow playing (reminding us of the great Opeth).

The last song "Endtime" starts off very atmospheric but then breaks into heavy pounding metal and then breaks into the atmosheric stuff again. It then has distorted vocals and breaks into an Opeth like riff and soon enough Mikael's vocals come ripping in. Very good stuff.

If you like Opeth, I highly recommend this album.