Customer Reviews

Brave Yester Days

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

since there's not much info here on what this IS, here you go... this two disc set contains:

Disc 1:

Jhva Elohim Meth -- Entire EP, five tracks, 1992
Dance of December Souls -- two tracks from LP, 1993
War Compilation Vol. 1 -- two tracks, 1994
For Funerals to Come -- Entire EP, four tracks, 1994

Disc 2:

Brave Murder Day -- two tracks from LP, 1996
Sounds of Decay -- Entire EP, four tracks, 1997
Saw You Drown -- Entire EP, four tracks, 1997

I'm not sure, but the liner notes indicate that this was 'mastered'... so I'm not sure if it's remastered, but the sound quality is good from start to finish, and it flows - which can often be a problem with compilations - so no complaints there. The price is also right, giving you a ton of out of print material on two discs for the price of a single disc.

The music? Well, as you can see by the dates above, everything on here was recorded before 1998's Discouraged Ones, so a lot of it doesn't have the clean vocal parts you might be used to. (although the material towards the end *does*) Opeth's M. Akerfeldt (sorry if i'm misspelling) does an excellent job with his vocal parts, and fans of his work should be excited to hear this material.

If you've hesitated in picking up older Katatonia material because of the death/black vocal stylings, there is a great way to get a taste of what they offer from that period, and I think what you'll find is that the music still offers the same great atmosphere of the "newer" material, without ever coming off as just being some cliche black doom.

This isn't just a cash in either... the material is excellent, it's a great introduction to the first part of this band's career, and it's a great value. Fans of their newer stuff should get this immediately to see what they've been missing, and fans of the older LP's who can't get their hands on the out of print EP's will want to get this too.

Another quality disc to file under the Katatonia name.

This is a great compilation of the band's now mostly unavailable EP's. For fans like me, who got into the band fairly recently and still want to collect everything, this is perfect. It is mostly older material, similar to "Brave Murder Day," which I like better then their newer material. This includes the following EPs in their entirety, which are probably all out of print: "Jhva Elohim Meth," "For Funerals to Come," "Sounds of Decay," and "Saw you Drown," also 2 tracks from "War Compilation Vol. 1"... apparently some compilation they contributed to. It also includes some tracks from full albums also, "Dance of December Souls," which might be very hard to find, (but only includes 2 out of 8 tracks) and "Brave Murder Day"... which shouldn't be that hard to find, I don't think. But that also includes only 2 of 6 tracks.

The first EP is "Jhva Elohim Meth," I'm assuming is their very first, and is very good. It includes an early version of "Without God" later found on "Dance of December Souls," and the epilogue is cool sounding :) The War Compilation includes "Black Erotica" which is an earlier version of "12" from Brave Murder Day, and "Love of the Swan" which is also very good. The whole EP "For Funerals to Come" is amazing and an absolutely essential part of this band, except the last song which is some weird experimentation. "Sounds of Decay" on disc 2 is almost the same case. "Nerve" and "Saw you Drown" can be heard on "Discouraged Ones" and both are excellent songs, "Saw you Drown" being one of my top favorite Katatonia songs. The last two songs were only on the EP, "Quiet World" is very mellow, but keeping the same mood as the rest of Discouraged Ones, and "Scarlet Heavens" is over 10 minutes and also very good of course, nothing on here isn't.

I don't really think this is a great way for fans to discover the band, except maybe for the song "Saw You Drown" and the songs on Brave Murder Day and For Funerals to Come, other than that, it kind of should be the last thing you buy after all their full length albums, as it is a collection of out of print things. I might be wrong though. All I know is I've been listening to it a lot since I got it; it's a great collection and really needed to be done.

This is a great display of katatonia's career, and progression as a band. The earlyer stuff was black/doom, slow dark, and haunting. The later material is progressive goth/doom, very very good. Plus theres about 5 tracks with mikeal akerfeldt from opeth on it. This is an amazing collection, i definetly recommend it.

"Brave Yester Days" is the first of two Katatonia compilations (the other being "The Black Sessions") to be released in consecutive years. But the two releases do not cover the same ground at all. "Brave Yester Days" covers the earlier period of the band between 1992 and 1998, whereas "The Black Sessions" covers everything from 1998 through to 2003. Both compilations are spread across two compact discs and include rare and unreleased material making them worthy of attention for any fan of this melancholic Swedish band.

This first compilation is of value for fans of the band during their death / doom period. It includes some of the classic tracks off "Dance of December Souls" and "Brave Murder Day". Since those tracks are readily available and most fans will already have them, the interest really lies in the rare and unreleased material of which there is plenty. Firstly, there are 4 EPs included in their entirety, all of which are extremely difficult to get your hands on these days due to their limited release. The EPs are "Jhva Elohim Meth" from 1992, "For Funerals to Come" from 1995, "Sounds of Decay" from 1997 and "Saw You Drown" from 1998. All of these EPs are well worth listening to for various reasons. "For Funerals to Come" and "Sounds of Decay" are of particular interest as all the tracks on each were not released on full length albums, whereas "Saw You Drown" is worthwhile due to the original album being limited to only 1500 copies (it sells for hundreds of dollars on Ebay!). On top of all the above you get 2 tracks that were on the War Compilation in the very early 90s as well as a previously unreleased track called "Untrue" that was originally intended for the "Sounds of Decay" EP. This track is fantastic and I'm not sure why it was left off in the first place.

Is "Brave Yester Days" worth your hard earned cash? Well, it depends on whether you own any or all of the above EPs. If you don't own them and you like the bands earlier, heavier sound, then this is fairly essential. But even if you do, there's over 2 hours of great Katatonia music on here for the price of a single album and it flows fairly well due to the tracks being set in chronological order. It's a great snapshot of a band evolving from a raw, aggressive, yet melodic band into the suicide rock that they play today.

For fans of early Katatonia (before they watered down their sound following the great 'discouraged ones' album), this is a nice collection of harder-to-find tracks. Details on the tracklist are below:

(from The Encyclopedia Metallium's online entry):

This is a best of album featuring their doom/death metal material (the early era.)

Tracks 1-5 from "Jhva Elohim Meth"
6-7 from "Dance of December Souls"
8-9 from "War Compilation Volume One"
10-13 from "For Funerals To Come"
Disc 2
1-2 from "Brave Murder Day"
3-6 from "Sounds of Decay"
(track 6 - "Untrue" is previously unreleased)
7-10 from "Saw You Drown"

First edition came in a limited DIGIPAK format.

The song "Black Erotica" is an earlier version of the song "12" from the Brave
Murder Day album.

Katatonia meld their own atmospheric style of moody heavy metal with morose funeral doom and the results are outstanding. these 2cd set compiles their early mini albums into one handy package for those who missed it the first time around... people like me. so count yourself lucky to get your hands on Brave Yester Days.
musically, this band seems to share alot in common with those seminal UK alternative rock bands like Joy Division or The Cure. very slow passages built up with emotional tension and bleak atmosphere, rather than anger or aggression. but Katatonia approach it from a black metal standpoint. on later albums, this band would transform into a much more mainstream sound, and to brilliant effect, i might add. but it's nice to peek into Katatonia's dusty cobweb encrusted closet and discover these gloomy bleak gems.

This was actaully my intoduction to katatonia. The day after I got this I went out and bought viva emptiness cause this cd set was so amazing. It is a good tour through there career, from the early doom sound to the depressing doom death sound of sounds of decay (which that whole ep is on here) to the more modern katatonia sound. Simply amazing collection.

Having only heard Katatonia's newer tracks, I didn't really know what to expect from this album. Basically, it's a bunch of songs from their earlier albums that have been remastered. I can't really comment on the difference in quality between the remastered and original tracks, not having heard the originals. You can certainly see how much Katatonia has grown and changed as a band, from their earler, more Death-Metal influenced works to the more recent atmospheric rock efforts. A definite must have if you're either a fan of atmospheric music or death metal with a twist.

first off i was skeptical about buying this cd becuase i own all of the other cd's by katatonia and i thought this would be just another "hits" cd's...i am ashamed i thought that of katatonia...one of the most inspiring bands ive ever had the chance to listen to. most of the songs on here ive never heard before and i own dance up to viva. they all are high quality songs. a treat to me especially was an alternative version of my favorite katatonia song "black erotica". and look for a box set at the end of march.

Having bought all of Katatonia's new albums that are in the doom/alternative vein, I was surprised when I got this because even though they are a very good alternative band they were even better as a black metal band.

The first disc begins with the epic song "Without God" and dosen't let up till through out the entire disc. Not since Black Sabbath has a band mastered creating a dark atmosphere this well. The music is pretty slow compared to other bands in the BM genre, but it is slow with a purpose though. I somewhat prefer this approach because many BM bands use being fast as an excuse for poor songwriting skills. The vocals are very emotive and seem to add an edge to the songs, abit like some Death songs and In Flames:Lunar Strain. 5 stars for the first disc.

The 2nd disc features 6 songs with Opeth singer Mike Ackerfeldr, which I have a bit of a problem with. While Opeth is one of my favorite bands, Mike just dosen't fit with Katatonia as well as the other singer. I attribute this to the fact that he didn't write the lyrics, which seem to be very personal. You can tell the other singer believes in what he's singing, where with Mike you can tell he probably just got handed a sheet of lyrics and was told to sing them. This makes for a much less dynamic sound on the 2nd disc. The rest of the 2nd disc is some songs off Discouraged Ones which are from when they were a doom band and one unrealeased song that sounds oddly like Pink Floyd. 4 stars for the 2nd disc.

I would have possibly gave this a 4 because of the 2nd disc but for $15, a price I would pay for either discs alone, this is an absolute must buy. I recommend this to any fan of Doom metal or any fan of unconviental black metal.