Lost Review Domain

Reviews for Katatonia - Dance Of December Souls:

User Reviews:

Your Review:

This is in fact their best work beside the first ep. Black Metal with great guitarwork and brilliant melodies, even more Black Metal and heavier than on later albums. The most outstanding songs are "without god" and "velvet thorns". A classic! 8/10

Review by: Pestkrieg

its a classic for me. the mood of the album is so original that i can not compare. i met katatonia with this album within time they changed ,but this albums importance for me never changed.so
i raise my fist to the sky and swore

Review by: LakeOfGhosts

Obscure: a great debut album...a diferent doom vocals...the perfect sound of darkness.

Review by: ARTHUR(The Doomer)

this is masterwork of katatonia wery sorrowfull and slow
amazing atmosphere and cool musicans tis is theirbest album...

Review by: smetiaak

along with old MDB, Anathema, and Disembowelment, you cannot find heavier emotional metal than this.

Review by: ttong

Great! This is the best doom-death metal album ever. The tunes are really depressive and with a touch of pain and melancholy that create an ambience difficult listen again on a CD.

Review by: gfabila

1993 - Dance Of December Souls (10/10)

Well, Katatonia's more or less debut full-lenght album, which was my first encounter with this band. This really continues their earlier work "Jhva Elohim Meth". Katatonia are in my opinion one of the more interesting bands from Sweden. Dance of December Souls really captured me and showed me the beauty Doom/Death has to offer. They are, together with other important bands of this genre such as Anathema, Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride the creators of our beloved Doom/Death.

If you are only familiar with the later work of Katatonia, well let's say this is completely different, this is darker, more depressive, more anti-religious, simply more evil, if you want. Technically, this album is really over the top, as the hypnotic melodies and interludes are very catchy and they stream the whole album beauteously. The lyrics are a mixture of sorrow embracing last embers of hope, about atheism, sorrow and dispair. Jonas Renske does a great job here as a vocalist, sounding very exhausted and desperate, yes, he even has a bit of a "blackish" tone in his voice, but you can't compare his vocals here with the job he did on other albums, where he sounds better as he started singing clean. On "Brave Murder Day" they even got Mikael Akerfeldt to take over the harsh vocal part. I think he wouldn't really fit well into this album, simply because its way more gloomy.

This album has a really unique guitar sound, the drums aswell don't sound empty or hollow, they really fit the music. If you just insert this CD into your CD-player you will get 53:33 minutes of pure doom. Tracks like "Gateways Of Bereavement" and "In Silence Enshrined" really makes you understand what i mean with great interludes, as I've mentioned earlier. Two more favorites of mine on this album also are "Without God", which really impressed me, the name really fits the song, and "Tomb of Insomnia" which more or less, blew me away. The song is really epic and doesn't let you go. From the beginning to the end I couldn't even think of skipping this.

Even though the recording quality of this record may not be overwhelming, it really doesn't have to, because that doesn't really bother you on "Dance of December Souls". I really recommend this for fans of Katatonia, for collectors this is a must. I give it 10 out of 10 points, no less. Definetly one of the early highlights of Katatonia.

Review by: shadespawn

Back to band page