Katatonia and Sólstafir have announced a co-headline tour of the United Kingdom and Europe for early 2023. The Twilight Burials Tour will include 31 dates, beginning on January 20th and ending on February 24th.
The coming together of these two revered masters of melancholy seems only natural. For over a quarter of a century, both artists have favored the emotional connection that their music brings over all else. Theirs is a world where “heavy” is a force of nature; where progress comes from within, outwardly changing their musical output into something almost unrecognizable from the extreme metal that carried it in the early days.
The tour will see both bands playing their own headline sets and will be supported by the up-and-coming British post-hardcore band SOM on select dates.
Speaking on the announcement, Katatonia said, “With over a year now since we played our last live show, it’s an understatement that we want to get back on stage. Add to that an album released during the pandemic with no ways to promote it through touring, it is with a good portion of hope we present you this European tour together with Iceland’s own Sólstafir. Even though a return to normality is joyous, why not celebrate it with some melancholy? This tour will bring a lush twilight shadow over Europe. Join it!”
Swedish metal band Katatonia was founded in 1991 in Stockholm, Sweden, by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nystroem. The band started playing black metal but has since become a melancholy metal outfit with influences from progressive, doom, and gothic metal. The group has released twelve studio albums, numerous singles, and extended plays throughout the course of its thirty-year history.
Black metal was a significant influence on Katatonia’s early works, namely their debut album ‘Dance of December Souls’ (1993), and the EP ‘Jhva Elohim Meth’ (1994), which featured a dark, atmospheric sound and lyrical themes centered on death, sadness, and darkness.
As the band’s sound progressed, they began to incorporate more progressive and doom metal elements, with their music becoming more melodic and less aggressive. This approach can be heard in albums such as ‘Last Fair Deal Gone Down’ (2001), ‘Viva Emptiness’ (2003), and ‘The Great Cold Distance’ (2006).
Katatonia made a comeback in February 2020, and their eleventh studio album, ‘City Burials,’ was released in April of the same year. The band continued to sound melancholy while embracing a more orchestral, progressive style on ‘City Burials.’
The band themselves produced the album, with Karl Daniel Lidén doing the engineering, and Jacob Hansen handling the mixing and mastering. Lasse Hoile provided the album’s artwork, which depicts the continued reign of the ‘Dead End King.’
The Ocean Collective and Cellar Darling provided support for Katatonia’s headline North American tour of 2022 in support of ‘City Burials.’ The tour started on November 9th in Washington, DC, continued through December with stops in a number of significant cities, and ended on December 10th in Tampa, Florida.
In other news, the date for the arrival of Katatonia’s constantly evolving, eagerly anticipated new album, ‘Sky Void of Stars,’ has been announced. We are already taking preorders for the record, which will be available through our shop on January 20th, 2023. If you count ‘Dethroned & Uncrowned,’ the band’s 12th studio album, ‘Sky Void of Stars,’ will undoubtedly go down in history as a masterpiece.
Speaking on the new album, the band says, “Our 12th album, ‘Sky Void of Stars,’ is a dynamic journey through vibrant darkness. Born out of yearning for new horizons and a desire to break the restraints of expectations, we have crafted a record that stands out as a testament to our resilience.”
The album features ten tracks of pure, melancholic metal and is sure to captivate fans of the band’s signature sound.
Katatonia has released an atmospheric performance music video for their brand new single, ‘Birds,’ which harnesses the song’s energy and desolate power, creating a truly captivating experience which can be seen below.
Lead vocalist Jonas Renkse comments on the single: “The pulse of dereliction. The insatiable need to expire. Here come the birds.”
The quick and energetic sound of this brand-new track once again shows off Katatonia’s explosive potential and their genre-bending style, carried by Renkse’s longing vocals, with the band promising more singles to follow in the coming weeks.
Sólstafir is an Icelandic post-metal band formed in 1995 in Reykjavík. The band is known for its unique blend of metal, folk, and ambient music, which they have referred to as “Icelandic metal.” Over the course of their twenty-five-year career, the band has released seven studio albums, numerous singles, and EPs, and has toured extensively throughout the world.
The band’s early work was heavily influenced by black metal, with their debut album ‘Í Blóði og Anda’ (2002) featuring a raw, aggressive sound combined with clean melodic vocals. This sound evolved on their second album ‘Masterpiece of Bitterness’ (2005), which featured a more polished production and a more comprehensive range of influences, including folk and progressive rock.
Sólstafir’s sound continued to evolve on their third album, ‘Köld’ (2009), which featured a more atmospheric and ambient sound, incorporating elements of post-metal and shoegaze. This sound was further explored on their fourth album ‘Svartir Sandar’ (2011) and fifth album ‘Ótta’ (2014), both of which featured a more melodic and introspective approach.
The band’s sixth album ‘Berdreyminn’ (2017), marked a return to a more aggressive sound while still maintaining the band’s signature blend of metal, folk, and ambient music. The band’s latest album ‘Endless Twilight of Codependent Love’ (2020), features the band’s most expansive and mature sound to date, combining elements of post-rock, progressive metal, and folk music.
Icelandic Sólstafir’s latest album was their ‘Endless Twilight of Codependent Love,’ released on November 6th, 2020, via Season of Mist.
The album was the band’s seventh studio effort and featured nine tracks of mind-bending metal, perfect for fans of both metal and melancholic music.
The album was recorded at Sundlaugin, Audio Grni, and Gotta, featuring art by renowned artist Johann Baptist Zwecker, and the album was set to be a multi-faceted masterpiece.
Sólstafir has been pioneering the melodic yet heavy sound for over two decades, and ‘Endless Twilight of Codependent Love’ was set to cement their legacy as one of the most innovative heavy-metal bands of all time.
To support the release of ‘Endless Twilight of Codependent Love,’ Sólstafir will embark on a co-headline tour of the United Kingdom and Europe with Katatonia in 2023, as stated aforementioned.
Tickets for the tour are now on sale, with the tour kicking off on January 20th in Tampere, Finland. The tour will visit several major cities throughout the continent, coming to an end on February 25th in Stockholm, Sweden.
Fans can purchase tickets for the tour and find more information at Bandsintown.
