Review of the Album Morning Crimson by Finnish Melodic Black Metal Band Catamenia

On the album cover for Morning Crimson is a woman that is surrounded by a huge pack of wolves. Are they following her as her pets? Sometimes it takes a lot of critical analysis and reasoning to infer the meaning or symbolism behind the album’s cover. The woman in the photo has her eyes closed and she is touching her hair.

Sometimes in life as the song Aurora Borealis symbolically states, the burning flames and the heat can be a guiding force to get us through the freezing cold nights. …And Winter Descends is an Arcturus influenced song about how the cold and darkness of winter can bring many people’s spirits down. Even a walk through the cold areas and being exposed to frosty, cold air can be enough to bring some people down into the dark depths of despair.

There is also the title track Morning Crimson which tells of the memories that some people have when they have witnessed a moment in which they have reached their destination but the destination is not revealed by them. As the sun burns and the moonlight gives way to this sun, the victorious ones shall celebrate. It takes a while to get used to the music of these first two albums but starting with 2002’s Eskhata, that’s when these guys get seriously good!

Passing Moment of Twilight Time continues the Arcturus style riffing as the song is basically trying to say that sometimes we forget the beautiful moments that have passed us by as the moonlight lights up the night sky and makes it pleasing to look at and remember. If there are any flaws with Morning Crimson it is that it has the same style of screeching growls by Mika Tonning and the riffing style is pretty much a constant throughout the album. The Forests of Tomorrow is a song about someone that is searching for the truth in a forest as the wolves are his guide. I know that to some music fans this may be a cheesy way to structure the lyrics but the band’s album covers have focused solely on having packs of wolves on the covers. As night falls, the man is walking through the forest hoping that he will make it through whatever adversity he may be facing. When the Frost Took the Lakes lyrically is about what happened as the frost developed and froze all the lakes of the land as the snowstorm started to take effect. The song has one of the best starting riffs in the history of Catamenia.

Overall, Morning Crimson is an improvement over the band’s debut but in terms of being the best album the band has written, it is not quite there.