Katatonia "Brave Yester Days"

Brave Yester Days is a 2-disc best-of album by Katatonia. It contains the material from Katatonia's older era, mainly consisting of death/doom material, and a few alternative rock songs.

"Black Erotica" is an earlier version of "12" from Brave Murder Day and "Untrue" is a previously unreleased song from the Sounds of Decay sessions.

Eduardo Rivadavia from Allmusic said that the compilation displays "Katatonia's gradual shift away from their doom/death origins" to a sound featuring "lighter guitars, incremental keyboards, and the replacement of deathly growls with clean-sung, melodic vocals" and called the album "an astoundingly well-conceived summary of Katatonia's purely metallic career" and "a frankly unbeatable bang-for-buck proposition when it comes to housing so many scattered releases under one roof."

Disc 1

1. Midwinter Gates (Prologue) 00:44  

2. Without God 06:54   

3. Palace of Frost 03:40   

4. The Northern Silence 03:59   

5. Crimson Tears (Epilogue) 01:49  

6. Gateways of Bereavement 08:12   

7. Velvet Thorns (of Drynwhyl) 13:55   

8. Black Erotica 09:08   

9. Love of the Swan 06:53   

10. Funeral Wedding 08:41   

11. Shades of Emerald Fields 05:23

12. For Funerals to Come 02:47   

13. Epistel 01:13   

 Total time: 01:13:18  

Disc 2

1. Murder 04:54   

2. Rainroom 06:30   

3. Nowhere 06:07   

4. At Last 06:10   

5. Inside the Fall 06:13   

6. Untrue 02:34  

7. Nerve 04:30   

8. Saw You Drown 05:01

9. Quiet World 04:37  

10. Scarlet Heavens 10:24   

Total time: 57:00  

Disc 1:

Tracks 1-5 from Jhva Elohim Meth (Demo, 1992).

Tracks 6-7 from Dance of December Souls (Full-length, 1993).

Tracks 8-9 from War Compilation Volume One ("Black Erotica" is an early version of "12" from Brave Murder Day.)

Tracks 10-13 from For Funerals to Come... (EP, 1995).

Disc 2:

Tracks 1-2 from Brave Murder Day (Full-length, 1996).

Tracks 3-5 from Sounds of Decay (EP, 1997).

Track 6 from Sounds of Decay sessions 1997, but unreleased back then.

Tracks 7-10 from Saw You Drown (EP, 1998).

Katatonia:

Lord Seth (on Jhva Elohim Meth)/Lord J. Renkse (on Dance of December Souls) (Jonas Renkse) – drum kit, clean vocals, lyrics & screaming

Blackheim (Anders Nyström) – lead guitar, music, guitar (on Jhva Elohim Meth & Dance of December Souls), bass (on Jhva Elohim Meth & Brave Murder Day) & backing vocals (on For Funerals to Come)

Day Disyhrah (Dan Swanö) – backing & clean vocals (on Jhva Elohim Meth & Dance of December Souls), electric keyboard & session musician

Israphel Wing (Guillaume Le Huche) – bass (on Dance of December Souls, For Funerals to Come & "Scarlet Heavens")

Fredrik Norrman – music (on Brave Murder Day, Sounds of Decay & Saw You Drown) & rhythm guitar

Mikael Åkerfeldt – death grunts & session musician