Review: Katatonia – Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State
This is interesting—a couple months ago I wrote a review for Behemoth’s latest album which was a record I didn’t like at all, and I made a point about how I used to be a fan of that band whose goodwill towards them was pretty much spent.
I mention this because Katatonia, the legendary Swedish pioneers of death/doom, and now purveyors of modern gothic prog metal, are a band that seems to have made its fandom bristle for a very long time, namely due to how you have 3 groups of Katatonia fans: the true diehards who keep being invested in this band, the old guard who were fans of Katatonia during their early years and refuse to acknowledge anything past 1998, and finally, the disgruntled long time fans who have progressively quit the band for the last 15 years. For the latter, the last straw was the definitive departure of co-founder and guitarist Anders Nyström earlier this year (but who had been absent from Katatonia since 2016) as well as seemingly frivolous accusations of using generative AI.
I bring this up because Katatonia’s new record, Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State, is an album that I find fascinating. One thing I’ll say from the get-go is that I honestly didn’t care for this record, and while Katatonia is a band I was familiar with, and I understand their past acclaim, it’s also a band I never really gravitated towards. Their now extensive discography and a solid decade of records that get a very polarized reaction certainly didn’t help. But this record specifically, the thing that I find interesting is how this band have basically entrenched themselves in one musical sound and direction and run with it, while seemingly losing themselves in the process. Even as someone who isn’t that into Katatonia, I was aware of the darker sound of their early years, and their shift towards a more accessible sound while keeping some semblance of harshness.
This new record’s biggest failing in my opinion is its complete lack of identity; nothing about the music pops out or tells you this is Katatonia beyond Jonas Renkse’s vocals and even then, because of the band’s past influence, his vocals still blend in with other progressive or alternative metal bands of the last 20 years. In a maddening way, this is still the sound that Katatonia have stuck with for that same amount of time, so there’s this odd paradox of the record being unmemorable in 2 different ways at once: yet another Katatonia record of the 21st century, and a prog/alternative metal record that blends in with the rest of albums by bands in this niche. As an outsider looking in, I can understand why the band’s fanbase is so polarized; the shift from death/doom to gothic prog has officially lasted for longer than their early days, and even fans of this sound would either be comfortably happy, or tired of the band releasing another album with so little flare or unique traits.
That being said, I don’t think this record is a complete failure; while I wasn’t really engaged or wowed, I do have to give the band props for their musical chops, because even if this record is more of the same, they certainly don’t lack the technical talent to make prog metal, particularly on the slower and more atmospheric sections. Suffice to say, only time will tell what will happen with Katatonia after this point, because given their longtime fans’ reaction, and the band’s seemingly fixed position as Swedish metal veterans, I wouldn’t be surprised if Katatonia becomes a touring only act, because now that Anders Nyström is completely gone, this is basically Jonas Renske’s solo project. He’s the last original member left and is clearly the only one making decisions here, something that Nyström referenced as the reason he left, since he felt the band’s early material has been woefully neglected on the stage, which must feel like a vindication for the old guard fans.
2/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State is out today through Napalm Records.
