Katatonia • Page 2

Scrach that, I like this.

 

This band usually leans a little too melancholic for me, but that song was cool. I liked their last album as well. I'll check this out when it comes out.

 

Their 2023 song about parakeets was cool.

 

Jonas addressed the situation with Anders in an interview I've just read, translated into English I believe. thought it was worth posting here

The split with Anders made some headlines recently. He wasn’t part of the KATATONIA live lineup for some years now. When was the point for you when you realized that not only was he no longer part of the band on stage, but that you could no longer work together as a band in general?
I think it happened when we had that European tour for the last album, „Sky Void Of Stars“, which he didn’t want to be part of, and he gave us two weeks of notice to find someone else to fill in, which was a bit harsh, I think. Just a couple of weeks after the European tour, we had a scheduled tour for South America, which I asked him beforehand, are you doing the South American tour? And he said, yes, I will. And he didn’t. He didn’t want to do it, either. And then I started feeling like this is not working out for me. There is a certain amount of trust that you need to have and feel within the band context. A band is like an extended family, and you spend a lot of time with them on tours and stuff like that. So for me, it’s important that you feel that you can trust what people say. And if they say they’re going to do something, and they don’t, that turns me off pretty much.

He seemed to be quite surprised about being fired from the band, anyhow. Do you have any understanding for that? Can you imagine that it was in some way surprising for him, or should he have seen it coming?
It’s hard for me to say. I haven’t really read his statements because I want to keep my mind focused on other things. To me, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise if it was me. He deliberately didn’t want to be part, he made sure that we understood that by just not being part. So for me, it’s a natural thing: If you’re not part, you can’t really say that you’re part. It’s simple as that. But of course it’s an unfortunate situation, and there is a certain amount of sadness thinking that this is ended. But also for me, it’s… the band is an ongoing thing. It doesn’t really stop rolling. There are always things to be done, and it has to be done. Otherwise, you will just fall into oblivion. And I still love doing this. My daily drive is to think about music, and write music, and plan for musical things to happen. For me, there’s no reason to stop it, because I love it so much. But for other people it might not be as important. And then it’s… I mean, it’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality.

It seemed as if he was primarily frustrated that the material from the early days of KATATONIA didn’t play any role in your live sets anymore. What’s the reason for that?
For me, the big reason has been that I have not been performing songs from the first two albums, mainly because I’m not really a growling vocalist anymore. I can’t really do it without sort of hurting my voice and I don’t want to do that in a live situation, when I have to sing clean afterward. But we’ve played recently songs from „Tonight’s Decision“ [„For My Demons“, editor’s note], and we play „Teargas“ pretty much every show. It’s also a matter of with every new album you release, you have a new set of maybe 10 or 12 songs that you also have to promote. And then you have to play what people want to hear from other albums. So it’s hell to come up with set lists these days, because we have so many songs.

 

some cool textures on this new album (the choir on "Wind Of No Change" is super dope). still feels a tad, I dunno empty? without Anders, but I think it's their best since TFoH for sure

 

new album has me hitting fall of hearts a lot again and good lord sanction + residual is such an amazing combo, that bridge on residual especially

 

i gotta say i am absolutely goddamn obsessed with efter solen, probably my favorite song of theirs since pale flag

 

been really into this band the last few months after being kind of dismissive of them for a while. def like them the most when they stray from their comfort zone since songs like pale flag and unfurl are my favorites from them but their whole run from last fair deal through hearts is rock solid

hope they bring the new record to the states but also i cannot imagine why international band would want to and would not fault them for opting out of that