- Country: Sweden
- Style: Progressive metal / Gothic metal
- Label: Peaceville Records
- Release date: 24 April 2020
City Burials is Katatonia’s eleventh album, produced by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström themselves and mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen. It is more guitar-driven than you might expect from them at this stage, and that is a good thing.
“Heart Set To Divide” opens with a slow build, then “Behind The Blood” hits with a riff that almost sounds like classic heavy metal. “Lacquer” goes the other way: sparse electronics, a crawling pulse, Renkse’s voice right up front. It is one of the saddest things they have recorded, which is saying something.
The second half is where it becomes a real album rather than a set of singles. “Vanishers”, with guest vocals from Anni Bernhard of Full of Keys, is gorgeous. “City Glaciers” and “Untrodden” carry the grey, rain-on-concrete mood all the way to the end. Melancholy as a craft. Nobody does it better.
Best tracks:
Behind The Blood
Lacquer
Vanishers
City Glaciers
Author’s rating: 8.7/10
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