|
Katatonia Concert Review
Although it was just last October that Katatonia toured North America, they have returned once again in 2007 for another go-around. Lucky thing, too, since I didn’t get to see them last time. Accompanying them on that tour were such groups as Moonspell and Novembre, but this year’s lineup gives 2006’s a run for its money as the gloomiest of the season, with a pair of supporting acts from Finland in Insomnium and Swallow the Sun, each on their first American tour. Scar Symmetry, like Katatonia, are also making their second appearance in less than a year in the runner-up slot.
As is customary, The Pearl Room in Mokena was the chosen venue and the rush hour traffic was terrible, but with the extra time I had budgeted I still arrived well before the show’s slated beginning of 7:00. My entry was delayed half an hour due to some guest list confusion, but I still managed to get in before the show started. By then the crowd was of a respectable since, though still small enough for me to get a good spot. Besides, many of them seemed content enough to sit back and watch instead of jockeying for position near the stage.
I imagine this laid-back attitude was largely due to the bill—doom metal and gothic rock not being too conducive to moshing—and as the evening wore on, the mild looks and attitude of the crowd confirmed my guess. After seeing the likes of Necrophagist and Nile this summer, I had become used to the shaved heads and oversized t-shirts with ghastly artwork, but the average look on this September evening was notably more demure, and the gender balance was as even as I’ve seen at any metal show, barring Kamelot. The Testament playing in the background wasn’t the most appropriate musical choice, though, and would come to be quite irritating as the evening wore on.
The Pearl Room is as much of a bar as it is a concert venue, but there is still plenty of floor room for shows of this size, and although the wraparound upstairs area wasn’t lit, I still noticed people watching from up there. The stage is fairly sizeable as well and had the standard set-up of one kit on risers at the back and another before it, along with the rest of the opening band’s gear.
This evening, that first band turned out to be Centaurus, a brand new group formed by four young Chicagoans without any particular genre goal in mind. So far, that translates to a faintly progressive and melodic form of heavy metal with plenty of leads and even some post-rock leanings during their most strum-heavy sections. At present they have no vocalist (although they are on the hunt for one), but they still managed to keep the crowd involved with their engaging style and light commentary between songs. One of their guitarists, Ryan Bruchert, served as spokesman for the set, and after introducing the band kicked off the evening with tongue-in-cheek: “We’re your fluff band for the evening.”
Centaurus are far from fluff, though, and I can think of quite a few signed openers I’ve seen put on worse shows than they did. Some flashes of youth showed through, mostly during Ryan’s commentary between songs, but overall they exuded a professionalism and level of confidence I wasn’t expecting from a band playing their first show ever. As I later discovered, all of Centaurus’s members have performed with other Chicago metal groups (Rellik, Axiom, and Veneficum), which doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering their skill. Most of their half-hour set had the vocalist in me trying to come up with melodies on the spot, and the song ‘Lair of the Rancor’ featured one of the best single melodies I heard all evening.
After their set they handed out some demos and left the stage to appreciative applause. Regardless of whether they remain instrumental, I certainly would not mind seeing Centaurus land a consistent spot as the Chicago openers for national tours, and with a good vocalist, they could do much more.
In short order they had cleared their gear from the stage and the audience experienced the first episode of the evening’s layover ritual: 30 minutes of Testament over the loudspeakers and Ozzfest samplers tossed like Frisbees from the stage by a deadpan technician. At first it seemed like an innocuous event, easy enough for one to ignore if ‘The Gathering’ wasn’t a favorite album or Ozzfest a favorite tour. However, as the evening wore on and the samplers and Testament returned time and again, even the most patient of us began to tire. By the end of the night, broken Ozzfest samplers littered the floor and numerous pacts had been made to give ‘The Gathering’ the same treatment. It’s not that Testament are a bad band, nor ‘The Gathering’ a bad album, but each song from that album’s middle half must have played through at least five times too many.
Thankfully, the bands actually in concert broke up that monotony remarkably well, and next up were Swallow the Sun. Having just released their third album, ‘Hope’, this sextet have really made a name for themselves in the doom scene, and deservedly so. Many of them are involved in other bands ranging from death to black to standard heavy metal, but they all seem to have a special focus on Swallow the Sun. This, no doubt, has played a big part in the band’s success on the European charts, and I was pleased to discover that it translated just as well to their live performance.
Dressed in black shirts and skinny blue jeans like some uniformed shoegazer ensemble, they all came out together and humbly acknowledged the crowd’s cheers before beginning their half-hour set. As was expected they played a good amount from their new album, but with songs as long as theirs it is difficult to get away with more than five or six songs. And actually, looking back, I’m not sure how they were able to play as many as I think they did. From what I can remember (and what other set lists they have used this year), the first half of their set consisted of ‘Descending Winters’, ‘Out of This Gloomy Light’, and ‘Don’t Fall Asleep’, which was probably the song that least impressed me on the ‘Hope’ album. However, in the context of the show, I had a much easier time getting into the atmospheric elements of the song and cutting the clean vocal line of Mikko Kotamäki some slack. Throughout the set, he wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and didn’t interact much with the crowd, but this reserve fit in well with the band’s music and wasn’t an issue. His greatest asset as a vocalist is his remarkably low growl, more guttural than the average but too sonorous for a gurgle, and he was in full command of them for the show. His highs were also very good, though he obviously couldn’t layer them like he does on record. Only his clean vocals left anything to be desired, and that only because they were forced a little too much, perhaps due to the imbalance between the volume of the clean and harsh vocals, which wasn’t remedied until much later.
The second half of the set consisted of a pair from the new album—‘Hope’ and ‘These Hours of Despair’—both of which were crushing, and a surprise closer in ‘Swallow’. During the second half, I paid more attention to the band’s instrumentalists and found myself especially drawn to their bassist, Matti Honkonen. It helped that he was positioned directly in front of me, but he also was the most physically engaged of them all and played each note with delicate affection. He would sway from side to side, tilt his head and close his eyes, then open them suddenly and gaze towards the back of the venue as if he were looking at something far beyond the walls.
The rest of the band were more introverted, but all of their performances were equally expressive. Some fans towards the front of the audience would thrust their arms into the air on occasion or mouth along with the words, especially to ‘These Hours of Despair’ and its lament of, “Light, joy, hope, trust. All is lost.”
The final perk of their set was the touring drummer, none other than Kai Hahto, presently playing in Wintersun and previously of Rotten Sound, Arthemesia, Enochian Crescent, etc. I had forgotten that he was replacing Pasi on this tour, but my memory was jogged as soon as he laid down one of his lithe fills during the sound check. During the set, though, I hardly even thought to focus on him, which I suppose is a testament to how smoothly he fit in. As Daniel Liljekvist (Katatonia’s drummer) would later say, everything Kai plays is of utmost tastefulness; I doubt I could have found fault with, much less noticed, any changes that he may have made to the songs. Respected by his peers and certainly adored by fans, he is one of Finland’s best.
A few minutes after the thirty minute mark, the band closed their set, and with muted but earnest thanks took their leave. Matti came forward to shake a few hands and ended up having a ticket thrust at him to sign, which he did, and then we were all left once again to ‘The Gathering’ and Ozzfest UFO’s flying overhead until Insomnium were through with their set-up.
Luckily, this did not take very long, and despite the few minutes that were shaved off their preparation time, they took the stage promptly at 8:30 to the loudest cheers so far. Leksi of Swallow the Sun also appeared to provide the piano intro from Insomnium’s ‘Above the Weeping World’ album (and would return a few times throughout the set), which was a nice touch, but for the most part Insomnium functioned as their standard four-piece.
As such, they had the smallest line-up of the touring bands that evening: Markus Hirvonen, Ville and Ville (Friman and Vänni) on guitars, and the formidable Niilo Sevänen on both vocals and bass. Vocalist/instrumentalists are still uncommon enough in (‘extreme’) metal to not expect too much out of their live performances, but Niilo made clear from his very first growls that he wasn’t going to hold anything back. Ideally, I would have liked to have heard more of his bass, but the mix was balanced well enough and his vocals were well featured. His timbre and delivery have elicited comparisons to Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne, and I was impressed to find that Niilo was able to hold up his tall end of that comparison in the live setting—with instrument in hand, no less.
As would be expected, they played quite a few from the newest album, but songs from their previous releases did show up, with ‘Daughter of The Moon’ receiving the largest vocal response. Although Insomnium’s music is for the most part melancholy, nearly every song has an almost danceable, pop groove to it. I would usually hesitate to use such words to describe heavy metal, but after seeing the audience bouncing up and down to songs like ‘The Killjoy’, I can’t shake the image of boisterous preteens at a pop-punk show.
As the band’s set continued, the applause and cheers grew only louder, and by the halfway point Niilo was visibly impressed. He thanked us a number of times and promised to come back soon as he tried to contain a huge smile, nearly stumbling over his words.
The only thing detracting from the band’s performance was that Vänni would occasionally slip out of synch with the other members, typically during his lead sections. It happened often enough to be a distraction but not often enough to stop me from enjoying their set, and I imagine it’s not something that occurs too frequently.
More troublesome to me was the shrieking girl. I first heard her screaming herself hoarse from the back, but somehow she still managed to slip up to the front and find a spot directly behind me. With her boyfriend in tow, she proceeded to spasm, flail, salivate, convulse, and exhibit any number of other symptoms characteristic of a seizure. At times, her excitement was so consuming that she had to wrap her arms around her boyfriend’s neck to stop her from collapsing. This proceeded for the remainder of the set, and soon as Insomnium were through, she departed and everyone nearby literally breathed a sigh of relief. While I certainly respect her enthusiasm and vigor, a little more self-restraint would be appreciated by those of us not looking for the moshpit. Regardless, Insomnium’s set was an entertaining one, and from the response that they got I imagine their promise to return soon will be an easy one to fulfill.
Next up were the black sheep of the evening—Scar Symmetry. When they came through with Dark Tranquillity in March, I only managed to catch the second half of their last song, but it had been enough to pique my interest. Comprised of Swedish veterans, most of them with other fine projects to their name, Scar Symmetry play a modern style of melodic death metal that is plenty of fun and good for headbanging it not necessarily groundbreaking. Their set in March had consisted of only four songs, but this evening they could more than double that in their allotted 45 minutes and after a brief intro track they got right to it, making the most potent first impression of the evening.
Scar Symmetry on record is slick and polished, but their sound that evening was so much thicker and more powerful than I had expected. Their bassist, Kenneth, was nearly as loud as the guitarists, and the combination of his EBS amp and Rat distortion pedal produced the best bass sound I have ever heard at The Pearl Room, alongside Tony Choy of Atheist. As he later told me, he had been looking for that pedal the entire tour and had only bought it earlier that very day. He was obviously pleased with its sound, and spent much of the set grinning and striking poses alongside the guitarists.
As it happened, he was not the only member of the band to be trying out new equipment. Jonas Kjellgren (ex-Carnal Forge and Centinex) was playing for the first time his Dime Signature series Razorback seven-stringed guitar. In case you were wondering, his is the first one ever made. Hopefully it will not be the last, though, for as the band’s technician had put it during sound-check, “Man, this thing is a beast.”
And Jonas certainly knew it. Along with Per, the band’s other guitarist (also with a seven-stringer), the two of them channeled enough rock ‘n’ roll spirit to make up for all the moodiness of the other bands and then some. Of the two, Per was more surgical, playing the sweeping arpeggios and racing leads, while Jonas was the wild child, tapping away madly and waving his guitar around at the audience during his solos.
With a sound as phenomenal as theirs, it was hard to focus on anything else, but I had good reason to try. The band’s vocalist is Christian Älvestam, whom I’ve come to believe is one of Sweden’s most talented and unsung musicians. His vocal approach, clean choruses and harsh verses, has become standard practice in much of the melodic death scene, but Christian executes it with impeccable skill and has been doing so for longer than most. His growls can get remarkably deep while still retaining their strength, and he can transition easily into a strong singing voice.
He was buried a little in the mix, though, which made hearing his clean vocals difficult at first (for him as well, it seemed), but the sound booth improved on the imbalance after Jonas gestured to them a few songs into the set. At about the halfway point, I saw Per dash to the side of the stage, apparently having broken a string, and returned with a new guitar decidedly less metal than his standard. It was black with green knobs, and had a small sticker from ‘The Lion King’ on it, but any guitar in his hands would sound just fine, as he proved with another ripping solo right after plugging back in.
On they rolled, playing songs from of their albums with Henrik pounding away at the kit behind them, his earbuds in place. I’d hoped to get pictures of his kit as it had been last time—covered with nude photos—but he later told me I’d have to wait till the end of the tour for that kind of thing. Maybe next time.
The audience seemed to flag a little around the halfway point, which didn’t come as too much of a surprise, since Scar Symmetry’s type of groovy death metal wasn’t quite what most fans had paid to see. However, the band really did their best to engage the audience, especially Christian with the call and response and singalong choruses. And by the end of their set the audience was getting animated again, especially during the faster songs. A pair of eager girls barreled their way towards the front to start a moshpit, and the band closed well with one of their most infectious songs, ‘The Illusionist’, which had the first few rows pumping fists and singing along. At about 10:15 they wrapped up, and with ears buzzing pleasantly I decided I’d see them again anytime soon; no matter the style, good showmanship is worth seeing, and Scar Symmetry have that in droves.
Now, only Katatonia were left. As if signaling the shift in gears, the music finally changed from Testament, although its successor, Megadeth, didn’t really reflect the evening’s mood either. By that time, though, no one seemed to care. Those who were drinking were drunk enough make a dozen new friends, and when Katatonia’s banner was uncovered we gave the customary cheer. After no more than 15 minutes, the lights went down for the last time and Katatonia emerged.
In the past couple years I have attended musical performances of all kinds, from folk to metal to classical to jazz and beyond, but Katatonia’s presence onstage was completely unique to me. It wasn’t so much a question of degree—this band being so much more exciting than that band—it was rather that they had an atmosphere and character different from any performer I’ve seen before. They combined the extremities of their career with such skill that I hardly noticed how strong the contrasts were until the next day: the past against present, old despair against new discouragement, youth against maturity, and so on, all blended together with an almost sensual grace that was too effective to be an accident and too refined to be overbearing.
Many may wish that Katatonia’s era as a doom metal band had lasted beyond ‘Brave Murder Days’, and I admit to count myself among them, but after seeing Katatonia perform I thoroughly believe that the band they are today is the one that was meant to be. Although each member had a distinct personality, ranging from the reticent Jonas Renkse on vocals to the more showy Anders Nyström on guitar, they were all united in their reverence for the music they played. The remaining three members fell somewhere in between, with Mattias on bass offering the crowd the most in the way of involvement and encouragement.
After getting accustomed to how aggressively they were playing the ‘new’ songs, I settled in to enjoy the set. It consisted mostly of post-2000 material, taking such songs as ‘Don’t Tell a Soul’ and the crowd-pleaser ‘Teargas’ (which had a contingency of girls singing along to each other) from 2001’s ‘Last Fair Deal…’, while the rest were split about evenly between ‘Viva Emptiness’ and ‘The Great Cold Distance’. I was pleased to hear such a heavy sampling from ‘Viva…’, that being my favorite album from the modern Katatonia, and they didn’t disappoint with excellent renditions of ‘Criminals’, ‘Wealth’, and others. During ‘Evidence’, Anders turned on the reverb for the chorus, giving the song a much more ethereal feel that I may prefer to the original. He would take liberties like that from time to time, changing his sound with delay or reverb foot pedals or simply adding in a touch more dissonance, depending on what the flow of the set called for.
Anders would also provide backing vocals when necessary, and his high, harsh scream added significantly to Katatonia’s metal edge. Otherwise, Jonas did a fine job making his relatively quiet crooning heard over the rest of the band. Despite his status as lead vocalist, he actually seemed to be the most tentative member on stage. When he sang, he would rise up on his toes to the microphone with his hair hanging down over his face; otherwise, he would retreat to the drum riser and stand facing away from the crowd. Each time he returned to the microphone he did so quickly with a faint smile, looking nothing so much as an embarrassed poet at open mike night.
The band played with excellent chemistry, each complimenting the performances of the others, giving and taking as the energy of the song dictated. And in turn, the audience responded, cheering madly at the end of each song and falling almost silent again the next began. Some sang along, but it was mostly in the personal, under-the-breath sort of way, except during songs like ‘Criminals’, when the drunks would shout the obscenities with much gusto. After a time, Katatonia’s songs tend to fall together into a single vein, but the band were able to keep both themselves and us in the audience invigorated and attentive.
Finally, after nearly 80 minutes, Katatonia closed the show with the encore we had called for: ‘Murder’. Despite published protests to the contrary, Jonas still has a strong growling voice that he delivered just as he had all the rest of his vocals. After all these years and countless covers of ‘Brave Murder Day’ tracks from other bands, seeing the original performers do that classic track was a fitting and memorable culmination. And much as the rest of their set had been imbued with a new harshness, ‘Murder’ was performed with an extra elegance, as if the two extremes of Katatonia’s career were balancing the other. With that approach, there seemed hardly any shift at all to be made from the latter-day material to the ‘Murder’ encore.
When they finally left and the lights came up the people around me looked a little bit dazed. Katatonia may not be true ‘doom metal’ anymore, but they certainly can put their listeners in a trance when they want to. In the following minutes, I would try to catch up with Scar Symmetry, fail to find them, fortuitously run into a fellow photographer, and learn the full powers that my yellow wristband accorded me. This consisted primarily of access to the upstairs VIP room.
There, in a fairly thick crowd of band members, friends, and a few press members, I tracked down the Scar Symmetry guys and chat with them for awhile. This was the second evening I’d spent in their company, and I can’t think of a more relaxed and cheerful group dynamic that I’ve witnessed. Later, I was also lucky enough to run into a couple other band members, namely Leksi of Swallow the Sun and Daniel of Katatonia, both attentive and pleasant fellows. I spent some time with the latter, along with the drummer from the opening band, who discussed the merits of funk, the talents of Kai Hahto, and waxed nostalgic about the glory days of Milwaukee Metalfest. Eventually, the conversation turned to the show Kittie had played at The Pearl Room the night before, and more specifically the two females who had allegedly performed 11 acts of fellatio between them. Despite the slight buzz that comes with mixing alcohol, it was wisely decided that both women would be avoided, should they mysteriously appear.
Unfortunately, I could not stick around to see how the evening turned out; I had a hour of driving ahead of me, work in the morning, and it was already 1 AM. Another round of farewells and I was out the door, thoroughly satisfied and ironically upbeat. I imagine the socializing afterwards had some impact on my mood, but the concert itself was equally enjoyable. If all doom and gloom metal shows leave me with such a spring in my step, I may just have to make tours like this one a regular event.
|
|
|
