REVIEWED: Katatonia + Evergrey @ Electric Ballroom, Camden

There’s arguably no better measure of a band’s stylistic breadth and evolution than the fanbase they attract — a subcultural strata only too keenly observable within the colourful and frequently chaotic sphere of live music. Indeed, the motley assortment of leather-clad metalheads, romantically attired goths and follicularly challenged, middle-aged gentlemen gathered here this evening gives no small indication of just how fluid and ever-evolving a craft Katatonia have been honing over the past three decades. Progressing from the haunting, doom-laden viscerality of their 1993 debut through successive albums into the dramatically mellower territories of 2025’s ‘Nightmares As Extensions of the Waking State’, the departure of guitarist and primary songwriter Anders Nyström earlier that same year brought with it a seismic shift in the compositional fabric of the band — an absence that will, without doubt, be keenly felt at various moments within tonight’s highly anticipated set.

But before we plunge headlong into what promises to be a darkly absorbing sonic odyssey spanning literal decades of intensely melancholic art, Gothenburg melodic metal heavyweights EVERGREY do an impeccably polished job of warming up the early crowd — despite their bass player’s rather unfortunate current predicament.

“Our bass player has food poisoning,” announces frontman Tom S. Englund, delivering the news with deadpan, infallible comedic timing. “So if he needs to fuck off at any point, please… let him.” Yet, despite their bassist’s evidently delicate condition, what follows is a seamless, audibly practised repertoire whose every densely propulsive blast, supersonic vocal lead and sleekly unfurling riff are flawlessly engineered to intensely energising effect.

Shadowy forms silhouetted against a gigantic, luminous screen bestrewn with ethereal visuals sourced from various junctures in the Swedes’ illustrious back catalogue, it’s with lightning-paced immediacy that we’re engulfed in the densely bludgeoning throes of 2019 banger ‘The Silent Arc’. Paired with an impeccably gleaming, pop-infused array of stratospheric vocals, airily whirling synths and ornately sculpted riffery, theirs is a sound that richly embodies all the hook-laden, deliriously euphoric trappings for which the Gothenburg sound has long been globally revered. Maintaining breathlessly energised momentum across 'Distance's' colossal, weightily churning grooves and tautly muscled solo work into the super-sized, anthemic choruses and glimmering, ambient trappings of ‘Oxygen’, Evergrey’s epic and intensely melodic turn comprises a highly entertaining inroad into tonight’s proceedings.

From the earliest, most embryonic point of their creative output, soul-bearing emotional intensity and rawness has remained an unwavering fixture of KATATONIA’s stylistically fluid yet uncompromisingly authentic craft — a dynamic intrinsically rooted in the near-telepathic chemistry shared between gifted vocalist Jonas Renkse and long-standing brother-in-arms Anders Nyström. With the latter having made his departure mere months prior to the present moment in time, it’s unsurprising that the new material debuted tonight has a markedly different flavour, particularly when juxtaposed alongside altogether more established fan favourites.

Kicking off tonight’s genre-twisting repertoire with brooding yet pleasingly bludgeoning new single ‘Thrice’, the Swedes are on audibly razor-keen form, the track’s rumbling, ‘Night is the New Day’-esque bass grooves spilling forth like the onset of some civilisation-levelling natural disaster. Intensely compelling, too, are the ominously echoing swathes of riffage that, at the track’s bridge, writhe and reverberate with all the icy, evanescent menace of a teeming horde of malevolent spirits. Compositionally speaking, however, it neither traverses fresh sonic territory nor summons forth the tangible torment and intensity that’s long been characteristic of this iconic band.

Melding together fluid, elegantly cascading melody lines with a veritable tsunami of percussive blasts and bone-scraping textures, 2006 classic ‘Soil’s Song’ is as exquisitely transcendental and tangibly raw with feeling as ever. Led by Renkse’s dulcet, inimitably expressive vocal talents, it’s not long before every conceivable inch of tonight’s expansive crowd is held visibly rapt in their turbulent yet quietly affecting thrall. Bestrewn with glimmering melodic intricacies and luxuriantly entangled lines of fretwork that utilise restraint and sumptuously echoing nuance to richly atmospheric effect, ‘Liquid Eye’ is a sombre and skilfully constructed affair — arguably the most evocative and layered offering to have been extracted from new record ‘Nightmares as Extensions…’ for our delectation tonight.

But with its electrifying pairing of gargantuan, menacingly unhurried bass riffing and airily whirling flurries of keyboards whose icily intangible motions abound with all the darkly balletic beauty of midnight snowfall, doom-laden standout ‘Nephilim’ strikes a masterful balance of beguiling melody and pure, undiluted malevolence. Also sourced from 2009 masterwork ‘Night is the New Day’, ‘The Longest Year’ is a track tangibly drenched in existential torment, its intricate melding of sumptuously whirling, reverb-drenched guitar accents, ambient fine detail and blackly churning bass amassing a staggering presence that’s nothing short of pure, heartrending catharsis.

Amidst a frenetic scene of frantically flailing hair, flickering stage lights and undiluted evocative intensity, theirs is a towering, exquisitely sculpted monument to melancholia. And while the Swedes’ new material arguably lacks some of the unadulterated feeling and compositional ingenuity we’ve seen in earlier records, the eerily beguiling beauty and palpable anguish witnessed here in rich, blackly intoxicating abundance is, as always, nothing short of astounding.