October Tide
Grey Dawn

Second chapter for October Tide by Jonas Renske and Fredrik Norrman and a small line-up change within the band. No longer Renske as vocalist but the newly entered Marten Hansen (Singer of "A Canorous Quintet")

The group wants to maintain the standards of the previous work and succeeds, achieving a good result that is certainly inferior to the previous cd. The album still has the same sad and decaying atmospheres but seems to have fewer ideas and less inventiveness, even though some tracks are really appreciable. The work of the two Katatonia members is always excellent with Renske on guitar and percussion and Norrman on bass and the other guitar. Unfortunately, I must point out that one of the reasons for the album's decline is also the performance of the new singer, undoubtedly sufficient but light years away from the growl that Renske proposed in "Rain Without End", at times Hansen's singing is a bit monotonous which perhaps in the long run bores.

As mentioned earlier, however, the album is not to be discarded, and in particular, two tracks stand out: the first, "Floating", built on a very interesting riff that manages to carry the listener throughout the song despite the not very fast tempos, the second - superior to the rest of the album - is "Lost In The Dark (And Then Gone)", a track with a large instrumental part that takes up about 2/3 of the song; it is perhaps the most particular of the CD thanks to an insert of truly original acoustic guitar, which one might not have expected; the song is nonetheless engaging and not at all boring (something that has happened in certain tracks, but tastes are tastes).

The album is not a milestone of the genre, but for those who are fans of Doom/Death metal, it is still a good purchase, superior to much of what is out there.

The rating is a 3.5 but I round up to 4 for excess.