In May 2014 under the moniker ‘Unplugged & Reworked’ Sweden’s Katatonia headed out across Europe to present an intimate acoustic evening, performing tracks from their 2013 album ‘Dethtroned & Uncrowned’ album alongside atmospheric classics from their entire career, stripped and reworked.
Each venue, on the tour, was carefully chosen for its unique atmosphere. They were joined on guitar & vocals by The Pineapple Thief frontman and songwriter Bruce Soord.
Sanctitude is a concert filmed and recorded in the stunning candle-lit setting of London’s Union Chapel. The 80 minute set features 17 songs across the albums The Great Cold Distance, Viva Emptiness, Brave Murder Day, Last Fair Deal Gone Down and of course, Dead End Kings / Dethroned & Uncrowned, including fan favourite ‘Teargas’. The show closes with the sublime ‘The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here’ and a special guest appearance by Norwegian vocalist Silje Wergeland of Dutch legends The Gathering.
The live video for ‘Day’ is the first taster of what fans can expect from ‘Sanctitude’ and can be viewed here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB8FC22Yc8w
Katatonia’s Anders Nystrom comments on the release:
“Day… something you wake up to, or at least have to pull through, over and over. Most of them you forget about, but a couple you maybe look back upon and wish to relive again.
Unfortunately in reality, I’m afraid that’s not possible, at least not until Apple buys NASA and releases a new version of their Time Capsule backup machine and send people into the cloud and back into history to fetch an older version of their lives, but luckily for us, there’s a current control of our music that doesn’t need time travel.
We have always felt that if there’s a need, we’re entitled to the freedom to give our old songs a makeover in the now rather than the never. So, in the making of ‘Sanctitude’ there was one song in particular that meant a great deal to us. In fact, it was our first song ever to feature entirely clean vocals accompanied by clean guitars and it was written and released right in the peak of our death metal years.
The song stood out, but isolated itself into oblivion in the climate of heavier music. Therefore we wanted this song to get a second chance, to be re-discovered. Even 20 years later when performing it live for the first time, it appears the parks are still grey and look the same…”
Sanctitude will be released on 30th March UK & RoW / 31st March USA & Canada / 3rd April Germany.
All audio on Sanctitude has been mixed & mastered by Bruce Soord. With artwork once more supplied by long-time visual collaborator Travis Smith.
Sanctitude is set to be released in four formats:
1. Blu-ray in 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo plus ‘Beyond The Chapel’ documentary including brand new interviews with Anders Nyström & Jonas Renkse. Also includes download code for digital audio version.
2. CD/DVD package – audio / visual set including ‘Beyond the Chapel’ documentary.
3. Double LP (incl. download code for digital audio version).
4. Digital download (audio).
The physical formats are available to pre-order here:
