Musique Machine has mixed feelings about the new Katatonia: http://www.musiquemachine.com/reviews/reviews_template.php?id=737

Decibel interviews Katatonia: http://decibelmagazine.com/features/april2006/katatonia.aspx
Also see their lavish review of the new album "The great cold distance": http://decibelmagazine.com/reviews/april2006/katatonia.aspx

Katatonia will be touring Europe with support from the excellent Italian act Novembre (except on dated marked with *):

04/15 - Close Up Festival*, Stockholm (SWE)
04/20 - Cathouse, Glasgow (UK)
04/21 - Rio, Bradford (UK)
04/22 - Mean Fiddler, London (UK)
04/23 - W2, Den Bosch (NL)
04/24 - Le Boule Noir, Paris (FRA)
04/27 - Tavastia, Helsinki (FIN)
05/01 - Columbia Club, Berlin (GER)
05/02 - Markthalle, Hamburg (GER)
05/05 - Prime Club, Cologne (GER)
05/06 - Metalalliance Festival*, Beauvais (FRA)
05/08 - Rainbow, Milan (ITA)
05/09 - New Age, Treviso (ITA)
05/10 - Z7, Pratteln (SWI)
05/11 - Zeche Carl, Essen (GER)
05/12 - Scum, Katwijk (NL)
05/13 - Durbuy Rock*, Durbuy (BEL)
05/14 - Willemeen, Arnhem (NL)
07/15-16 - Ilosaarirock Festival*, Joensuu (FIN)

The latest Lords of Metal webzine update features interviews with Scandinavian acts Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, Raunchy and tons more: http://www.lordsofmetal.nl/index.php?lang=en

The video for the new Katatonia single "My twin" is now online: http://www.charliegranberg.com/movies/Katatonia%20My%20Twin.mov (via)

Katatonia's new album "The great cold distance" has been confirmed for a March 13 release date. Download a sample of the first single "My twin": http://www.katatonia.com/audio/mytwin.mp3

Both Aversionline and Dark Dose have posted tracks from the seasonably appropriate Katatonia sideproject October Tide.

Dark Dose posts a track from Diabolical Masquerade, the now-retired sideproject of Katatonia guitarist Anders Nyström: http://darkdose.com/?p=77

Katatonia has begun recording their next album at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden. Check out some pics from the session here: http://katatonia.com/newsmid.html

Metal blog Another Perfect Day posts a track from Bloodbath, the very excellent old-school all-star death-metal band featuring members of Katatonia and Hypocrisy: http://killformetal.blogspot.com/2005/03/bloodbath.html

Check out a track from Enter My Silence, an unsigned Finnish melodic metal band: http://www.entermysilence.com/mp3/EnterMySilence-TheParadoxOfTwo.mp3
There's strong elements of Katatonia-style dark-pop melodicism, but these guys are way more tech and more straight-up death-metal.

The End Records has licensed Katatonia's out-of-print and sought-after "Saw you drown" EP from 1998 for release via their sub-label Infinite Vinyl Series. 1000 copies, hand-numbered with special new liner notes from the band. Look for it in April.

Germany's Northern Silence Productions is working on putting together a Katatonia tribute album, focusing on the band's earlier, more traditional doom/death-metal era. The label says that numberous bands are already confirmed for project which is going under the working title "December songs". Other acts interested in participating are encouraged to contact them through their website: http://www.northern-silence.de/

Katatonia has confirmed that their upcoming 3xCD box-set "The Black Sessions" will be released on February 21. The collect includes a selection of the band's best material from the last few albums including b-sides and a live DVD. For full tracklist and cover art, go here: http://katatonia.com/sitestart.html

The latest from Katatonia:

Peaceville will be issuing a limited edition compilation entitled "The Black Sessions" featuring selected material from the 'new era' (defined 1998-2004) as opposed to the 'old era' material covered in "Brave Yester Days" at the end of January. The packaging will be a box set of two discs featuring all the single's b-sides, cover songs and selective songs off "Discouraged Ones" up and till "Viva Emptiness" (including one unreleased track from this recording session). There'll also be a third disc in the form of a live DVD with a Katatonia live show from April 2003 that was shot in Kracow, Poland. The layout of a 12 page booklet + poster will be handled by Travis Smith.
The official DVD release that has been in the works since over a year and a half has been postponed to a yet undecided future date, likely during the later part of 2005. Reason is we didn't feel entirely happy with the way it was shaping up and it wouldn't meet our own demands of what should be Katatonia's first offical DVD release. A new main show for this DVD will be planned and shot with more careful directing behind it during next year (tba). We're also pretty far on our way of gathering cool backstage and bootleg shots with our own handycam, that will in the end make up some great bonus footage for a well worthwhile killer release.

"The Black Sessions" should be a pretty cool collection - some of those b-sides are really, really great and it's especially interesting to hear the band's take on stuff like "O how I enjoy the light" by Will Oldham. It will be nice to finally have them all on one disc, even though chumps like me already bought them when they came out.