LIVE FROM THE PIT: Katatonia, Evergrey and Klogr

Why spend your Sunday night in when you could spend it at a gig? For this particularly cold night in Manchester, the best way to close out the week on a high is with Swedish prog metal band KATATONIA, with support from Italian-American metal band KLOGR and fellow Swedes, EVERGREY.

KLOGR (pronounced Kay-log-are) make their way to the front of the stage, including drummer JONATAN BATISTA, as behind them are screens, and a separate drum kit reserved for our headliners of the night. While cramped in space, they were certainly not held back from delivering on performance, with plenty of crowd interaction between songs from frontman RUSTY, including getting people to cheer for the bands to follow.

Venturing between industrial and prog metal, it is clear KLOGR does not like to set boundaries on their sound. The third song of the night was White Eyes, a newly released song from their latest album Reborn, which consists of reimagined versions of some of their previous releases; as such, this accounted for most of the rest of their setlist aside from Face The Unknown and Hysterical Blindness from their previous 2024 album.

EVERGREY’s last visit to Manchester was for their own headliner at Rebellion a year ago, with support from KLOGR, and to see them in a supporting position this time round felt no different, as they still brought as much energy as they gave during a show of their own. A powerful performance of melodic prog metal, well and truly got the audience engaged and excited for our headliners.

Despite having more members on stage than the previous band, everything about the band’s presence felt more fluid and seamless, giving each member enough space to immerse themselves in the performance, including Manchester’s own STEPHEN PLATT, nailing the guitar solos, filling in for guitarist HENRIK DANHAGE.

KATATONIA frontman JONAS RENKSE thanks the crowd for coming out, even with it being a Sunday night and comments that they do this every night, in response to a crowd member who makes a point to shout out the day of the week. RENKSE brings a haunting aura to the stage, mimicking the melancholy of the band's offerings, which transcend genre from melodic to prog to death/doom and everything in between. The band has reinvented itself but still stays true to its origins, even thirty years on. In saying this, their setlist of the night primarily focuses on their 2006 album The Great Cold Distance to their latest album Nightmares as Extensions of the Waking State.

They certainly made optimal use of the staging, with platforms to add varying levels, in a literal sense, to the performance, and screens displaying visuals for each song, which silhouetted the members, adding to the dark aesthetic the band portrays both musically and visually. While creating a very atmospheric feel, the band still managed to have on-stage banter, the chemistry between the members poking through their serious image. Even having banter with the audience, with RENKSE announcing that “corduroy pants in Swedish are called Manchester pants” and someone from the crowd responding with “I’ll give you my pants”.

For a handful of audience members, you could tell it had been a long week, and they were relieved to not only be at the end of it, whereas the rest of the crowd were bounding with energy, jumping, shouting the lyrics back and fully immersing themselves in the ethereal vibe. Despite this, they were all united by one key detail: that being graced by KATATONIA’s presence was the highlight of their week. This was further demonstrated through chants for an encore, before the band closed out with Forsaker.

Words and photos: Libby Percival