Peaceville Records – 2012 – Sweden
We are all aware by now that this is no longer the band that recorded such masterpiece albums like “Dance Of December Souls” and “Brave Murder Days”. For a long time now, they left this path and they proofed it with this new album once more. “Dead End Kings” is a very good album which might also attract some listeners from outside this genre to this band. It is a very deep album to which people can relax a bit. I would say that there are two ways to listen to this album: 1.) the relaxing way while doing something different than just to concentrate on this music; 2.) listen very closely to it and discovering some new details in it. It is up to the listener to choose the way of how to listen to it. I prefer the second way, since I noticed that the devil here on this album lays in the details. If the listeners choose to listen to it passively, the album might sound a bit boring at some moments because he/she can’t hear the little things that happen in the songs and give to them a certain something. Only by closely listening to it, you will be able to hear them and discover all the sweet little things in it that makes the difference. But then again, which album of Katatonia doesn’t have it too? My personal favorite song here on this album is “Undo You”. It is a calmer song and one of the longest songs here on this album with some of the most interesting symphonic parts here on it. Also, the other songs can convince, but not as much as this one does. With all these things in the songs, you won’t be aware of that that some songs sound like a sequel to the previous one here on the album. This album is in my opinion better than the previous album from Katatonia because it has another kind of melancholy which is a bit more alive instead of steady like on that album.
9/10
