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Katatonia > Discouraged Ones > Reviews > The_Desolate_One
Katatonia - Discouraged Ones

Pure, though flawed, hopelessness - 82%

The_Desolate_One, December 17th, 2011

Discouraged Ones is, infamously, the Katatonia album that, being their first to feature exclusively clean vocals, marks the transition in their career from their “old”, more metal style to their “new” style, incorporating mostly non-metal references, like Jeff Buckley, The Cure, Fields of the Nephilim and Red House Painters. And, while I'm sure it is impossible to recognize here the same band that composed Dance of December Souls, I don't believe this is a huge departure from the sound of Brave Murder Day. The guitarwork, with its slow, melodic riffs repeated to create a hypnotic sound, and the minimalistic approach to songwriting (just compare the simple drum patterns of both releases) are just as much here as they were there. And if you listen to the main riff of the first track, “I Break”, it'd be pretty easy to reach the conclusion that it has more to do with “Murder” than with, say, “Ghost of the Sun”, from the later Viva Emptiness. The biggest difference between DO and its predecessor, that makes people perceive it right away as a lighter album – as in, to label one as doom/death, and the other as depressive rock – seems to be the presence of more twinkling clean guitar parts, the clean vocals, and the mix, that gives them a more prominent place, instead of highlighting the guitars as much. DO also pushed further BMD's minimalism, sticking to shorter and more conventional song structures, instead of strangely arranged epics. In a way, this minimalism weights both in favor of DO and against it.

It weights in its favor because, together, everything works: the hypnotic guitars, the seemingly tired drumming, the strange, somewhat muddy production (that seems to give it all an aura of being a much older album than it really is), the morose and not really technically proficient vocals... everything comes together to create a depressive mood. Unsurprisingly, the lyrics aren't exactly the kind of thing that make your day brighter either. The themes are suicide (on the very first song, nonetheless), self-effacement, feelings of worthlessness and being unable to change one's life for the better, failed human relationships and urban images of decay – important to point them out here, since DO pretty much sets itself apart from the previous albums by focusing on more urban atmospheres, as opposed to the forests and mountains of early Katatonia's lyrics.

The chorus for the 4th track, “Relention”, sums up the whole of the album's concept pretty well: “I'm returning from something... to something... to something...”, all backed by guitars that endlessly wail like sirens on your ears. Everything's hopeless here and the music makes sure to let you know about it. There's no room for other emotions, like anger, happiness or even that highly dramatic, screaming sorrow of early Katatonia. One may complain that the songs here sound a little samey, and, yeah, they kind of do, especially since they all work within the frame of the same mood, and when you compare DO to BMD, you'll notice BMD had some more variety – from the serene melancholy of “Endtime” to the faster upbeat tones of “Murder” to the ballad “Day”. And that's where DO's minimalism kind of weights against it too: no matter how much you enjoy this album, you can't help but feel it's missing something... maybe some slightly more complex drumming or more varied songwriting. However, when you stop to think about it and compare DO to what Katatonia would develop later on, you see that, with more varied songwriting, DO would be Viva Emptiness. After this album, Katatonia would start a gradual process of working with other elements in their sound that would give them the ability or the will to express a wider range of emotions and human experiences, and songs like “Right into the Bliss”, from Tonight's Decision, “Clean Today”, from Last Fair Deal Gone Down or “Criminals”, from VE, prove this point, as self-pity gives way to hope, anger and expectation.

But, as it happens with the 4 stages of grief, Katatonia wasn't ready yet to move on, and DO is the moment to wallow in the depths of unmoving melancholy. And, the more you listen to it, the more you start to pick up on details here and there that set the songs apart from each other and show that quite some thought was put into the song structures. “I Break”, for instance, starts with the verse riff, followed by the bridge (announced by a rare drum fill), both, then are repeated, accompanying the vocals, before going into a new riff (that sounds like a variation on the verse one) for the chorus, and then a different riff marks the transition back to the start. “Deadhouse”, on the other hand, begins with the chorus riff, then switches into much quieter instrumentation with bass, drum and clean guitar for the verse, and features a weird interlude after the 2nd chorus. “Relention” has a bass intro before the wailing guitars start; “Saw You Drown” has a clean guitar intro, followed by a louder riff, a quiet verse, and a progressively louder bridge that climaxes with the chorus; and “Instrumental” and “Distrust” even have solos. When you think how easy it could've been to simply write songs with the structure of intro, riff 1 + verse, riff 2 + chorus, like many metal bands that have switched into a “lighter” rock style do (or even how many generic metal bands do in general), it makes you appreciate these little things a bit more.

So, in hindsight, I'd definitely say that, while later Katatonia albums are better crafted overall and feature better instrumentation, improved vocals and more variation, both in pace and mood, DO, in its minimalism and straightforwardness, has its own appeal and remains their best album to put on after you've had a shitty day. Highlights include “I Break”, “Deadhouse”, “Cold Ways”, “Saw You Drown”, “Instrumental” and, if you're getting the re-release, “Quiet World”, the best song ever made about feeling utterly worthless.