KATATONIA - City Burials (CD)

Katatonia's 2020 release City Burials is an absorbing, soaring statement of intent offering meticulously crafted doses of melancholy.

A triumph of deep and enigmatic progressive rock.

CD in digipak with 16-page booklet with artwork by Lasse Hoile.

City Burials is the band's eleventh studio album and its first since 2016's haunting The Fall of Hearts. With the winds of a new direction steering the band on their latest journey, City Burials represents the fruits of a rejuvenating and profound chapter in the band's legacy; a catalyst for its creators, with a collection of moments constructed out of the fragments of an ever-evolving life.

Compiled into one of their most important modern works and statements to date, the finely-honed instrumentation provides a multi-textured backdrop with the voice of Jonas Renkse guiding us through these latest trials of loss and ruin. Beyond their core creative duo, Katatonia are very much a full-blown band, and the chemistry between Jonas, Anders and their band mates - bassist Niklas Sandin, drummer Daniel Moilanen and most recent recruit, guitarist Roger Ojersson - has never sounded more potent, with City Burials being the first album Katatonia have made since Ojersson became a full-time member.

Inspired by an injection of fresh blood into Katatonia's creative brew, City Burials is an album that sees the band reclaim part of their heavy metal roots, via several moments of exuberant, old school classicism, deftly woven into these new songs' kaleidoscopic fabric.

City Burials was produced by Nystrom/Renkse and recorded at Soundtrade Studios, Tri-Lamb Studios and The City Of Glass, throughout October and November 2019, with engineering work handled by Karl Daniel Liden.

The album also features a guest appearance by Anni Bernhard, the voice behind Stockholm based act Full of Keys.

Lasse Hoile's artwork imagery represents the ongoing era of the Dead End King.