Customer Reviews

Tonight's Decision

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Katatonia is of course, known for their very dark, depressing tone in their music. While they aren't the most depressing sounding band i've ever heard (Godspeed you Black Emperor and My Dying Bride beat them) they are good at what they do. Tonight's Desicion is the perfect halfway point between the less depressing, more upbeat feel on "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and the darker, heavyer "Discouraged Ones." Those albums are both brilliant in their own way also.

The artwork in this cd is amazing thanks to the great Travis Smith. The booklet is filled with depressing and original artwork and photography.

Some of my favorite songs are "For my Demons," "I am Nothing," "Had to (Leave)," "A Darkness Coming," and "Nightmares by the Sea." The first 2 songs are a great example of the bands catchy(but only if you have an ear for it) doomy, heavy (with haunting clean vocals) style of this album. Just one of the many styles of Katatonia. "Had to (Leave)" and most of the other songs have some melodic, sad, brilliant riffs and vocal melodies (and lyrics).

"Nightmares by the Sea" is a cover of a Jeff Buckley song. Katatonia left both the original sound to it and also twisted it into their own sound. If you didnt know it was a cover you probably wouldn't have the slightest idea it was. This is probably the most upbeat song on the album and works perfectly after the darkest, softest song "A Darkness Coming" which is an extremely dark tune with acoustic guitars and deep melodies.

Each Katatonia album probably has its number of fans who see it as their best, but if this is still missing from your collection, don't miss out. If you are a brand new fan, this would make a great introduction even though "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" would usually make a better introduction.

Tonight's Decision, while not as brilliant as Last Fair Deal Gone Down, still offers up a stellar performance by this outstanding Swedish band.

The tone is dark, moody and depressing. One of the things I've always like about this band is their focus on texture. The intricate song structures and moody lyrics go hand-in-hand. However it is the sad, almost tearful sounding vocals of Jonas Renske that makes this album my favorite Katatonia release (so far). I can't think of the last time that I heard something so thoroughly sad and heart-wrenching. Renske has a certain style that is in a class all by itself and his voice washes over the listener like a torrent of tears.

Their cover of the late Jeff Buckley's "Nightmares By The Sea" fits in so perfectly with the rest of the album, that you'd think it was an original if you didn't know better. Some of my favorite tracks are "For My Demons," "Darkness Coming," "Right Into the Bliss," and the aforementioned "Nightmares", and "Black Session."

All in all, this is a solid effort by a band that doesn't get the attention that they deserve. If you liked Last Fair Deal Gone Down, you really should get this album (if you don't have it already). A good introduction to the band for those that may not have heard them before. Be sure to follow this up with Last Fair Deal Gone Down.

"Tonight's Decision" is the Swedes 4th full length studio album. The band had a reasonably stable line-up by now, although Dan Swano plays drums on this album instead of Jonas Renkse (who from now on would concentrate solely on vocals) and bassist Micke Oretoft had left between albums (Fred Norman plays both guitar and bass on this album). Other than these small changes, the members of this line-up still all exist in the band today.

"Tonight's Decision" doesn't really alter the sound of "Discouraged Ones" all that much. It's very much in the suicide rock vain that they had transformed into after "Brave Murder Day". But this would have to be their mellowest album with slightly catchier tunes than they usually write. That's not to say they went entirely commercial as the melancholy and depressive nature that is Katatonia's trademark is firmly in place. It's just a bit rockier and less metallic than albums before and after with more of a focus on chorus. While I think it has a better production than "Discouraged Ones" which was a little weak sounding at times, particularly the guitars and drums, I don't think the songs are as strong as on that release.

Katatonia at this stage in their career would occasionally come across a little awkwardly in the lyrics and vocals department and this is the album that it shows up the most. I really like Jonas' style of singing in general and I think he improves each album from now onwards, but when combined with such honest yet dreary lyrics, he occasionally comes across as trying just a little too hard to be dramatic and depressing. The guitars as always are what make Katatonia's music so great. The reasonably high lead of Anders is often contrasting with Fred's dirge-like rhythm, yet they always combine to make emotionally touching music.

Tracks such as "Right Into the Bliss" and "A Darkness Coming" really work for me. Others such as "No Good Can Come of This" and the Jeff Buckley cover "Nightmares by the Sea" don't work quite as well, but overall this is another good Katatonia release that will please pretty much anyone that likes their modern albums. It's not one of their best, but then they've been so consistently excellent over the years that even their lesser releases are recommended.

every single song on this record is excellent! One of the few albums I own that I can just let the whole thing play, over and over on repeat. Most likely one of the best Dark Rock albums ever recorded.

The fourth album from Katatonia expands the concept of 1998's Discouraged Ones by implementing structural and tonal variation while maintaining the band's trademark melancholic atmosphere. Though guitar riffs have a crunch in tone through which this band's metal history echoes, their music no longer speaks the language of metal; this is closer to what might be called introspective gothic rock, though with identifiable elements from the atmospheric, downbeat sector of indie-rock.

"life is full of darkness
and murderers come my way
someday you will join them
and I will let you in"

Sad guitar melodies and downcast riffs highlight these songs, proficiently performed in simplistic, cyclic patterns, with frequent clean tone interludes and occasional acoustic guitars shaping a variety of moods within the depressed conceptual framework. Bass guitar fails to find a distinctive space within the sound here, but session drummer Dan Swanö brings percussive variation to what remains a straightforward rhythmic construction, not to any inappropriately excessive degree, but just enough to produce more fluidity of rhythmic motion and flexibility in beat-patterns.

"I'd like to try to live my life again
I'd like to see where I was going wrong"

Still firmly within the compositional form of conventional rock standards, these songs experiment more with design and tempo compared to Discouraged Ones, which maintained consistency from track to track to form a unified sound; Tonight's Decision is a more varied effort that goes to greater lengths to secure identity for individual songs, creating in the process a less hypnotic experience, but one that achieves an element of diversity within a clearly defined and deceptively limited approach. This is well and good in its intention, but there is disappointment in key areas of this release, namely the inconsistency in songwriting, which leads to a number of awkwardly arranged, uninspiring numbers ("In Death, A Song", "No Good Can Come of This") and an uneven vocal performance from Jonas Renkse, whose despondent melodies are mostly delivered with conviction, but a few songs find his voice expressively flat ("Had To (Leave)"), awkwardly arranged ("In Death, A Song"), and strangely indecisive (half-whispered, half-sung approach on "This Punishment").

"I keep on living in this my only wish
that life will be good someday
I keep on losing my sleep because of this
seems so hard just to stay"

Production is strong, clear, and effectively representative, and the disc is packaged beautifully, with Travis Smith's stark, ghostly images of loneliness in shades of pitch black and midnight blue strikingly reflective of the album's obscurely descriptive lyrical themes of personal attrition and regret. When the album is on the mark, as in opener "For My Demons", "I Am Nothing", "Strained", and the forebodingly acoustic "A Darkness Coming", an atmosphere of sleepless 4am distress entrances the listener, but the aforementioned problems with inconsistent arrangements and Jonas's vocal irregularity disrupts the disc's sequence and makes it less of an experience than it should have been. In any case, the most penetrating musical moment of this album arrives with the brief guitar instrumental emerging from the silent aftermath of final listed track "Black Session"; a painful, beautifully sorrowful, sustained guitar melody mourns over a slow, fragile acoustic guitar, resulting in a piece of music so strikingly representative of this band's aesthetic that it could have been the only music on this disc and would have still nailed it more effectively than any one of the actual songs.

Katatonia is one of those rare bands that went through a drastic change in style and actually came out better for it. In the beginning, there was the slow and boring black metal release "Dance of December Souls", that was immediately relegated to the mediocre and mostly talent less pile. Things started to look up when they signed on Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth to do the vocals for their next two black metal releases, "Brave Murder Day" and "Sounds of Decay". Without warning, Katatonia suddenly switched gears from plodding atmospheric black metal to something completely different with their album "Discouraged Ones". Not quite extreme metal, but certainly heavier than pop or rock, they still managed to retain some vestiges of atmosphere and the visceral feeling of doom that permeated their early releases.

Fast-forward one album to "Tonight's Decision". Here the sound Katatonia was grasping for previously has been refined and had a lot of the kinks worked out. The music has become more upbeat than in past offerings, but still definitely has a bleak and dark undertone. Everything sounds much cleaner as well, and it's a lot easier to pick out individual sounds and instruments within the whole. The opening track sets the tone for the whole album, starting off with discordant sounds that don't particular appear to be any one single instrument, and then breaking out into some fancy guitar work that is reasonably heavy, but not crossing the line into actual metal. The vocal work is solid, remaining understandable throughout the whole album, and capturing an essence of despair. After running through the album a couple of times the listener will start to develop an emotional connection with the music. Memories and feelings will surface unbidden as the vocals mix seamlessly with the music to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The second to last track, "Nightmares by the Sea", is probably the best here, creating a unique atmosphere that is neither bleak nor uplifting, but somehow managing to be both at the same time. Some of the distortion of the vocals are used here, which becomes more prevalent during later Katatonia albums, but everything is still clear enough to be understood.

This album is a perfect transition between the music of Katatonia's past and the sounds of their future. It is highly recommended to all audiences, regardless of musical tastes.

Katatonia's simplest, catchiest album, although that's not to demean it in any way. Stripped down, relatively effects free production gives this album the band's clearest sound yet. The bonus tracks are also quite good. "No Good Can Come Of This" is quite possibly the most depressing song ever written. Buy immediately.

This album I believe is the best of Katatonia. Why?
Because in this album you can become one and the same with the music and you can find the deepest feelings that you have inside. The music, the lyrics, the rhythm give you this feeling, that you will not find anywhere else. Only the "life is full of darkness" from the first song give you an idea what it will follow. For me the best song is the "Right into the bliss"
If you like the atomspheric-gothic metal buy it now! It's one of the best in category!

Here we are again, reviewing another Katatonia cd. This one is very good, but not quite up to par with Discouraged Ones. Although, it does sport a cleaner production and sound overall. The two bonus tracks on this reissue are very good, not your typical reissue filler. Well worth the money.

This reissue of "Tonight's Decision" is certainly worthy. Instead of some bogus bonus tracks that many bands include on reissues, Katatonia has chosen two previously unreleased tracks that are as strong and powerful as others on the album. This album is a _MUST_ for those into high quality dark and beautiful music.