- Country: Sweden
- Style: Progressive metal / Gothic metal
- Label: Peaceville Records
- Release date: 20 May 2016
Katatonia have spent years perfecting a very particular kind of sadness, and The Fall of Hearts is where they finally let it wander. The songs are longer, the structures stranger, and the prog leanings that crept in on earlier records are now right at the front.
It’s also the first album with drummer Daniel Moilanen and guitarist Roger Öjersson, and you can hear the fresh blood. The rhythms are more restless, with Moilanen happy to push against the riffs rather than simply sit under them, and Öjersson’s lead work gives the heavier moments a bite they sometimes lacked before.
Opener “Takeover” is the statement of intent, a winding piece that drifts from a quiet, chiming intro through several shifts in mood without ever losing its vocal melody. “Serac” is even more ambitious, all odd turns and dark, almost ’70s-flavoured passages, while “Old Heart Falls” is pure classic Katatonia: a slow, aching chorus that hangs in the air long after it’s gone. “Last Song Before the Fade” is the closest thing to a rocker here, and “Serein” has a lightness that’s rare for this band.
At this length, a couple of the mid-album tracks do blur into one grey mood, and those wanting the heavier Katatonia of old will find only flashes of it. But the closing “Passer” brings back the guitars with real weight, and on headphones on a late, rainy evening, few albums from 2016 hit as hard emotionally.
Best tracks:
Takeover
Old Heart Falls
Serac
Last Song Before the Fade
Passer
Author’s rating: 8.8/10
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