Katatonia

Katatonia is a Swedish heavy metal band formed in Stockholm in 1991 by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström. The band started as a studio-only project for the duo, as an outlet for their love of death metal. Increasing popularity led them to add more band members for live performances, though outside of the band's founders, the lineup was a constantly changing, revolving door of musicians throughout the 1990s, notably including Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth for a period. After two death/doom albums, Dance of December Souls (1993) and Brave Murder Day (1996), problems with Renkse's vocal cords coupled with new musical influences caused the band to stray away from the screamed vocals of death metal to a more traditional melodic form of progressive rock. Katatonia released Discouraged Ones (1998) and Tonight's Decision (1999), before settling into a more stable quintet lineup for the remainder of the 2000s. The band proceeded to release four more albums with said lineup: Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001), Viva Emptiness (2003), The Great Cold Distance (2006) and Night Is the New Day (2009), with the band slowly moving away from their traditional metal sound while adding more progressive rock sounds and influences over time. While the background lineup changes continued into the 2010s, Renkse and Nyström persisted. The band continued on to release their ninth and tenth studio albums, respectively, Dead End Kings (2012) and The Fall of Hearts (2016). After touring in support of The Fall of Hearts album throughout 2017, the band went into a semi-hiatus at the beginning of 2018. Katatonia returned in February 2019 with their eleventh studio album, City Burials (2020), proceeded by their twelfth studio album Sky Void of Stars (2023), and thirteenth studio album Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State (2025).