Contributors: Lord Mokrap, T, C, Danny Martin, and Yonder Tarr
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Katatonia: Brave Murder Day
I can’t divorce my views on “Brave Murder Day” from vivid memories of my high school years. This album was for the times when the tenuous nature of social connections loomed like a threatening shadow and drove me to seek obscurity. It was for the times when reflexive smiles, forced laughs, protocol, and little power struggles waged on the scorched earth of polite conversation became overwhelming. I would seek out my favorite spot by the pond in the local park, pop in the headphones, and with the strains of this record everything unnecessary would melt away. “Brave Murder Day” still serves this purpose for me. Eyes glaze, images and vague associations take over from the here and now. The clenched jaw slackens; the teeth cease their grinding. There is only the music and light filtering through water, demanding nothing but rewarding perception.
The album opens with a sunny riff, chugging along, fragile and complacent. Mikael Akerfeldt’s grizzled roar commences, but does not disturb the sunny disposition. The drums plow a steady march into what must come. Then suddenly, a bitterly weeping riff tears the curtain away, and melody gives way to dirge. Akerfeldt becomes a wounded beast in his death throes, mighty still in his last desperate moments. Such is the emotional range of “Brave Murder Day.”
Repeatedly, the album builds to crescendos of violent mourning. At times it revels in bereavement, and it seems to enshrine loss as a necessary part of the order of things. However, Katatonia does not choose dissonace and formlessness as a vehicle for such explorations. Pop structures and melody can be found throughout most of the album, making it a relatively easy pill to swallow if you can handle the shrieks. The sound is brilliantly layered, and yet the stark simplicity of each element shines through.
Perhaps the greatest strength of “Brave Murder Day” is that it is not all gloom, doom, puffy cheeks, black lipstick, and pouting lips. One not accustomed to the more harsh and overbearing conventions of the death/doom genre may be too distracted to pick up on this, but, as noted before, the album paints with a wide range of emotional hues, from melancholy to visceral woe to an ephemeral yet potent happiness. Life is bittersweet. It is a horrible, beautiful mess. “Brave Murder Day” taps into that dynamic, and in doing so it rings true. Its beauty is in its truth.
-Yonder Tarr
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shadesofheavenlydeath reblogged this from tentaclesofham-fistedbludgeonry and added:
me over the years.
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tentaclesofham-fistedbludgeonry posted this
