It’s been almost ten months since Katatonia’s impressive performance at the annual Summer Breeze Open Air in Germany on August 17, 2006, and here it is - available for everyone already. "Live Consternation" emerged on May 28 via Peaceville Records as a double CD/DVD release documenting the Swedish avantgarde quintet's entire above-mentioned show, and I think that’s actually more than enough to describe this release in short. To be a bit more precise, via this stylish red-and-black offering (as always, the artwork is created by Travis Smith), band founders Jonas Renkse (vocals; also in Bloodbath; ex-October Tide) and Anders Nyström (guitar and backing vocals; Bloodbath; ex-Bewitched, Diabolical Masquerade), backed by long-time companions Daniel Liljekvist (drums), Mattias Norrman (bass) and Fredrik Norrman (guitar), demonstrate in a fuck-all-skeptics-and-unbelievers way that they’re simply brilliant musicians not only in the studio, but also on stage. In other words, the five-piece’s musicianship - as well as the CD’s quality of sound - is simply amazing! Regarding the substance of "Live Consternation", the first thing coming to mind is that it’s quite short. Well, I know we’re talking about a festival performance here, but I’m just eager for a few more cuts, especially when talking about an official retrospection... We’ve got four pieces from last year’s unearthly masterpiece "The Great Cold Distance", namely the opener "Leaders", the singles "Deliberation" and "July", and my personal fave, "Soil's Song". Then there’s the same number of songs off the predecessor "Viva Emptiness" (2003) - "Criminals", "Wealth", the smashing hit "Ghost of the Sun" and the show’s closing audio-pearl "Evidence". Finally, we get "Right Into the Bliss" and "Had to (Leave)" off "Tonight's Decision" (1999), plus "Cold Ways" off "Discouraged Ones" (1998) and... and that’s it. The lack of tracks off the band’s more extreme and brutal first two full-length offerings, "Dance of December Souls" (1993) and "Brave Murder Day" (1996), shouldn’t be a wonder to anyone familiar at least a bit with Katatonia’s sound and history, but not including even one tune off “Last Fair Deal Gone Down” (2001) is quite unexplainable... As for the second disc of "Live Consternation", the DVD, it’s got exactly the same content as the audio CD - just the 11 songs performed by Katatonia at the Summer Breeze festival, without any additional promo videos, extras and stuff. Its probably biggest advantage is the really crystal-clear picture quality, but this shouldn’t be a surprise, having in mind the fact it’s been created by one of the leading German music film makers, Roax Films, known for delivering high-class DVDs by Sodom, Machine Head, Lacrimosa, Tarja Turunen, Amon Amarth, Doro, etc. As a whole, what we’ve got here is a simple yet extremely nice audio-visual gift for both die-hard and future Katatonia adorers.