A stage backlit in red, shrouded in smoke.
Katatonia have truly created something unique and wonderful. No band is more adept at fusing Heavy and chill into one package. Their audience’s reactions are half head-banging, half-swaying to the mellow rhythms. Vocalist, Jonas Renske, maintains an unwavering level of enigmatic low intensity, regardless of whether the band around him are playing raucous, crunchy Metal or ethereal Prog. Clad in black from head to toe, hidden behind his own curtain of black hair, he commands the room from within the onstage haze, sometimes barely visible at all.
Their show is mesmerizing. It has all of the volume, the look, the guitar crunch, and the denim of a Metal show, but at the same time, Katatonia deliver a show based mostly on their emotionally powerful, somber recent albums, with very little evidence of their distant past. I question the omission of some of the best songs from “The Fall of Hearts,” especially “Last Song Before the Fade” and”Shifts,” but I acknowledge that they have songs from their 2020 album, “City Burials,” that they’re only getting to premiere live on this tour. It was also good to hear their first two singles from their forthcoming 2023 record, “Sky Void of Stars.” Their highlights were “Old Heart Falls” and “Soil’s Song.”
Ocean Collective came before, with their heady, Prog-Metall-y Tool-meets-Between the Buried and Me-meets-Textures sound. They were the ones who’d kicked off the smoke machines, and so they also performed mostly inside a block of fog and backlights. I’m not as familiar with their stuff before seeing them, but I was really impressed with their energy and passion. We seemed to get a unique treat at the Nile Theater show; vocalist Loic Rossetti brought his girlfriend onstage and proposed. If it turns out this is some kind of staged stunt they do at every show, then don’t tell me. I’d rather believe it was a special and genuine moment.
But it was the first opening band who owned the night. Cellar Darling had a short set, but they made every minute count, with album-perfect renditions of songs from their first two albums. Anna Murphy (ex-Eluviete) is one of the absolute best vocalists and songwriters working today, and she delivered incredibly on all of the pathos and emotional depth and beauty of the music. In addition to lead vocals, she also played keyboards, flute, and CD’s distinctive lead hurdy-gurdy. “Insomnia” was not only their set highlight, but the highlight of the entire show - - although “The Spell” was also a marvel.
Cellar Darling Setlist:
Freeze
Insomnia
Death
The Spell
Black Moon
Ocean Collective Setlist:
Cambrian II: Eternal Recurrence
Silurian: Age of Sea Scorpions
Bathyalpelagic I: Impasses
Bathyalpelagic II: The Wish in Dreams
Pleistocene
Holocene
Jurassic | Cretaceous
Katatonia Setlist:
Heart Set to Divide
Liberation
Dead Letters
Old Heart Falls
Deliberation
Onward Into Battle
Teargas
Austerity
Forsaker
Leaders
Soil's Song
The Racing Heart
Atrium
My Twin
The Winter of Our Passing
Behind the Blood
Untrodden
Encore:
Evidence
July
Lethean
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