Album Review: TheNightTimeProject - Pale Season

When a band has a sound that is entirely their own, the inadvertently create a niche that conditions the audience to expect more of the same. So when that band decides to take some time off, there is a gap that needs to be filled in, and often no one to do it. That's the case with Katatonia, who are a unique entity that has more or less defined what the word 'melancholy' sounds like. Others do sad rock, but none quite like them, so their current hiatus (on the heels of what I think is their best album) has stirred a hunger. What can be done about that? When it comes to TheNightTimeProject, a couple former members of Katatonia do their solid best to recreate the magic.

Getting the sound right is the easy part. Fredrik and Mattias Norrman spent fifteen years playing guitar and bass in Katatonia, so putting together instrumentals that carry that familiar sound is easy. The guitar tones are just right, and the playing is slow and somber in all the proper places. The feeling of melancholy permeates the music, even when it gets heavier and tries to pick up the pace. The hard part is finding a voice to give the music life, and in Alexander Backlund they have one that shares a tonal similarity to Jonas Renske, which locks down the necessary elements.

There's a fine edge when making music that is downcast. It's easy to let things get away from you, and have the songs wind up being too slow, too sad, flat when they are trying to be stirring. The thing about painting in dark colors is that if you aren't careful, you wind up with a black canvas. TheNightTimeProject learned from the right sources, and put their knowledge and experience to good use. Their songs are sweeping and melodic, with soft edges to obscure the creeping shadows.

That being said, the similarities extend to the same issue I have with much of Katatonia's work; namely, as much as I like the sound and mood the establish, and as enjoyable as the records can be as I listen to them, the songs are as ethereal as a shadow. Once the light rises and the mood lifts again, these songs dissolve into the air. It's not that every song needs to be an inescapable earworm, but the laconic tones and melodies here are not the kind that are likely to get caught in your head if you aren't searching for them. That doesn't make them bad, far from it, but it does mean this may not be a record that sits in the forefront of your mind, nagging at you to listen to it again and again.

But for a gray morning, this is the perfect soundtrack. "Pale Season" is the kind of album that creates a suffocating haze of an atmosphere, the kind so thick your thoughts can't escape. It is an album for reflection, for rumination, for feeling. I'm not always sure how to judge albums like this, where the feeling the evoke is almost more important than the songs themselves. What I can say is that if the mood is the key, TheNightTimeProject absolutely nails it.

The other thing I will say is this; as I mentioned previously, I found "The Fall Of Hearts" to be the best Katatonia album yet. "Pale Season" is a more compact version of that album, hitting all the same melodic notes. It's a beautiful record that stands toe-to-toe with the behemoth. That's all the praise you need, right?

I would mention one other concern, yet again shared (sorry to keep banging that drum); the timing. When I received this record and first played it, the weather was mired in a stretch of gloomy clouds and non-stop rain. Hearing this record for the first time in the beautiful summer weather, with sunny skies overhead, might not be the best way for this music to sink in. The music doesn't match the time, and at least for me that can make a difference. I know it took me until the start of autumn to fall for Katatonia, and the same could have been true for TheNightTimeProject, if not for rotten weather here.

So with all that said, here's the bottom line; whether it has claws that will dig into your flesh, or merely a ghostly hand that creates a chill, TheNightTimeProject has made a beautiful album that fills a niche you might not know is there. But when you need an album like this, you'll be glad to have "Pale Season".