Katatonia - Brave Murder Day (1996)

   "Brave Murder Day" by Katatonia is known as death/doom classic, that's interesting because of 2 reasons. First because it's quite late came to become a classic, and secondly because the album basically lacks death metal related themes. 

   The band's full lenght debut "Dance of December Souls" already introduced a different journey, that's more relatable to classical doom and to gothic tendencies, only the aggressive growling vocal style and the smaller focus on keyboard themes pushed them out to not take place amongst the line of epic doom bands. Their main tone was too dark for that, and the great outbreak that changed everything came by a way more unified and well composed album "Brave Murder Day". They have reached the very depths of melancholy with the strongly atmospheric sound, depressing melodies and netherworldish tone. The album sounds definitely heavier than ordinary doom metal, but the further style features more reminding to the toolbar of black metal than to death. The instruments doesn't sound too loud or noisy, especially the drumms are more powerless than usual in this style, and that gave the leading role for the melodies and the atmosphere. Therefore "Brave Murder Day" is not only heavier than most doom metal albums, but also more emotional. Still, none of these features could really refer to death metal except the vocal style, so the main style determination isn't completely correct. The album was a great milestone not only for the band, but also for the late development of the modern sound of doom.