Katatonia have actually only made one album that is exceptional: Brave Murder Day. It
is rather sad to see the genious and sophistication of Renkse, Norrman and Blackheim
being more or less wasted on the other albums, when you can see the magnificent capacity
on this album, which may very well be one of the world's 10 best albums.

The line-up:
Jonas Renkse: Drums, Clean Vocals
Mikael Åkerfeldt: Distorted Vocals
Fred Norrman: Guitars
Blackheim: Bass Guitar, Guitars

The album starts right away with an excellent song, Brave. It has it all: great vocals,
rhythm guitars that are deeper and heavier than lead, a crushing bass guitar, superb
drums - anything that can possibly be expected from a good metal song. The Death Metal
feeling may be one of the best ever!

The second song, Murder, is a bit more boring than the first one, but still - wow! Katatonia
show their genious throughout the album, and so also in this song, which has some strange
distorted vocals, that may seem disturbing. This is due to the fact that Åkerfeldt sings
brilliantly in all the other songs (apart from Day, where Renkse performs the vocals), but
loses some of the spell in this song. Otherwise - excellent!

The third song is Day, and it is a lot different from the other ones on the album, as Renkse
performs perfectly clean vocals to a peaceful drum/guitar music component only, and it is
a bit of a shock, you frown and start wondering what they are up to, but you cannot help
loving this song. It has such a lot of heart and feeling in it, and the lyrics are completely
awesome, too

Rainroom, the fourth song, may just be the best song that has ever been recorded. The power,
the feeling, the atmosphere, the pain involved, the rhythm, the genious... I could go on all
night describing this song, but I will simply put it this way: Rainroom has it all, the
dejection and pains, the power of feelings and thoughts, and the hurting of a lifetime
captured in a song.

The two finishing songs, 12, and Endtime, are great songs, but after Rainroom, you get kinda
numb, almost exhausted, because of everything that it brings straight to a dark and painful
heart. After that, you just cannot take anymore... Especially Endtime, however, is a very
good song, worth some attention. Once again, the combination of drums, bass guitar, and
rhythm guitar, and distorted vocals, works as a great whole. After all, you have to admit
that, even after having heard Rainroom.

Total rating: 9,5 out of 10.