Katatonia
Last Fair Deal Gone Down

THE REVIEW

Those who know Katatonia well are also familiar with their musical philosophy: from their almost black/doom beginnings, they have evolved their sound, becoming proponents of a melancholic music that pierces straight to the heart, proud heralds of a dark and desperate world as only they could conceive it.
"Discouraged Ones", with its warm and oppressive tones, was a pearl of pain and melancholy, a fall into a bottomless pit; "Tonight's Decision", cold in its colors and sensations, was like a rise, a burst of sound that swept away all the previous decay, a storm of poetic and visceral gothic rock, while still hovering on the edge of despair...
Now, with "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", it was inevitable to reach pure resigned misery, complete disillusionment. The culmination of a malaise that has been carried through two albums (ignoring those from their early career like the immense masterpiece "Brave Murder Day" which belong to a different compositional period of the Swedish band) that could do nothing but explode. However, an album not entirely successful: although incredibly intense in its sensations, it seems that Katatonia, immersed in their spiritual searches, have lost a bit of that charisma that distinguished them in the past, producing significant compositions but also others that are less refined and, shall we say, simplistic.
It was normal for the group to reach this point, after an emotional trajectory increasingly projected downward, after exploring every possible territory within the so-called depressive-gothic metal. A group that continues to amaze as it always has, as demonstrated by the beautiful "Tonight's Music", "Teargas" or "Sweet Nurse", with choruses that carve into the heart and never leave, or "Passing Bird" with almost doom tones in perfect Candlemass style, without forgetting more aggressive and refined songs like "Transpire", "Clean Today", and "Don't Tell A Soul", with more than a few lapses in some cases but always and still intense, or compositions like "Chrome" or "Future Of Speech", recognizable in many cases for the typical Katatonia style but perhaps for this very reason beautiful to fall in love with at first listen.

In short, not the band's best album, but a chapter nothing short of fundamental in their discography. A great album in any case (the rating of 3 may seem low but for me it corresponds to a 7.5).