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| | Katatonia - Melodic Doom/Black Metal |
 | | "Dance of December Souls" is a rehash symphony, and lacks the epic quality that first rate black metal does, yet for rock-based music with the aesthetic of black metal and the emotions of a mainstream band, it is an enjoyable frivolous listen if you can live past the predictable parts. |
 | | Where the "melodic metal" movement brings heavy metal and goth into metal, there are few successes, but for sheer musicality and mastery of aesthetic this band dominates them, while understandably not finding the influential minds of the underground impressed. |
 | | This has heavier, more decisive percussion than the EP, and is a welcome change in that area, but seems to be more enmired in the current ideas of metal as commercial vehicle than what the EP targetted. |
| www.anus.com /metal/katatonia.html (508 words) |
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