For the most part, our album of the month choices are a tight race with one album narrowly defeating the other choices. Not so much in April, as Katatonia easily defeated it’s rivals by a wide margin. And for good reason. Sanctitude takes some of Katatonia’s greatest material and strips it down to a bare-bones structure and plays it in front of a captivated audience. Many older tracks are given a fresh breath of life, and the Dethroned & Uncrowned material equally shines. A rare live album that necessitates purchase beyond the obligatory collector status, Sanctitude stands on it’s own merit.
An excerpt from Kyle McGinn’s 9.5/10 review, which posted April 2, 2015:
The most impressive piece of Sanctitude is how easily all of the tracks blend into the more intimate setting of this concert. There isn’t a track that really loses any of its emotion or power, which not only says something about the band’s dedication to reworking the songs, but the overall strength of the music in general. Much like Alice in Chains’ Unplugged, it shows the band in a more vulnerable position and takes many of the songs to a whole new level.
The first live album in quite some time that really gives that feeling of “man, how great would it have been to see that show?” Sanctitude is a keeper. Time will tell how much impact these last two years will have on Katatonia when the true successor to Dead End Kings hits the shelves, but one would be crazy to skip out on the journey that Sanctitude provides.
Read the full review here.