Review Summary: Pioneers and reigning kings of melodic death metal mark 18 years as a band with their best album to date.
(Disclaimer:This review was written before I had given The Gallery a fair chance and enough listens. While that album is - in my opinion - their finest hour, this album is a very close second. Basically, get The Gallery first, but you can't really go wrong with this either.)
A dark gray, desolate, and bleak landscape and sky - a sight that evokes emotions such as hopelessness, despair and loneliness to mind. Yet somehow in the middle of this, there is a strange beauty. This is a extremely tragic and dark thing that's somehow extremely beautiful . The preceding paragraph is a description for the cover of Dark Tranquillity’s latest album
Fiction, and in some ways a good summary of their music.
My lame attempt at a dramatic intro aside, Dark Tranquillity’s career speaks for itself. Starting out as thrash and then straight melodic death metal, they would bring electronics and piano into the already excellent metal formula in the latter half of their career. Churning almost consistently excellent albums, the band would build up a comparatively small but earnest fanbase, as well as well deserved recognition from those lucky enough to know about the band.
While nothing has really changed in terms of their overall sound since
Haven, another reviewer’s mention of the saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” could not ring more true than with DT’s music. Sure it would be nice to have more variation, but when your music is as good as this, nothing really needs to change.
Why do I think this album is a nearly flawless classic? Well basically it incorporates every single element that makes the band so great into 10 simply amazing songs. You have the normally brutal and technical guitars in most every song; piano and keyboards (
Nothing to No One,
Icipher); electronics (
Terminus,
Empty Me); and clean passionate singing (
Misery’s Crown,
Mundane and the Magic); the latter of which made it’s last appearance 8 years and 4 albums ago. Let’s not forget the melodic, clean guitar passages as well.
The first highlight for the band's sound comes in the form of guitar duo Niklas Sundin and Martin Henriksson. Like most good metal guitarists, they very easily play heavy, technical and fantastic riff after fantastic riff. There’s also a fair amount of harmonized leads backed by pounding rhythm guitar, and a couple short but sweet solos here and there. But (sadly) unlike too many metal guitarists, these guys also know how to craft slow, beautifully melodic clean passages as well (see
Inside the Particle Storm and
The Mundane and the Magic). Guitar-wise, the album is basically perfect.
Although I still believe that Mikael Stanne’s huge, roaring growls on
Damage Done comprised his strongest vocal performance to date, his now raspier growls do not disappoint. He’s still one of the best in the genre, and his better than average diction only aids the effect of the metaphorical and poetic lyrics.
The rest of the band is lower in the mix, but they are anything but simply backing the guitars and vocals. Electronics master Martin Brandstrom creates interesting electronic work and simple piano parts that do anything but downplay the guitarists, in fact it makes each song more interesting and adds texture. Most of the time he’s in the background but when his instrument(s) lead the pack they accent everything perfectly.
Lastly, bassist Michael Niklasson and drummer Anders Jivarp compromise a tight rhythm section, well displayed and best heard in the first 8 seconds of the album. You can actually hear Niklasson playing, and he does a good job of providing a low end for the guitarists. Jivarp is a fairly good drummer, playing fast when he needs to and slower when necessary – basically, the guy knows what a song needs drum-wise.
A fair surprise and subsequent highlight vocally is the song
Misery’s Crown. Stanne stated in an interview that as soon as his band played the song, he knew he needed to sing on it. It certainly fits, as it starts slow, somber guitar lead and keyboard harmonizing with each other, backed by simple drums and bass. This all changes into a mellow, smooth verse with Stanne’s deeply sung vocals before picking up for the intro-turned-screamed-chorus. It predictably repeats this before entering another smooth instrumental and finally ending with the beginning piano, now playing on it’s own.
The Mundane and the Magic finishes the album in similar fashion – with clean guitars building up to the band’s typical metal verse, before peaking in a great sung duet with female Theater of Tragedy singer Nell Sigland. In several ways the track is a hybrid between
Misery’s Crown and
Inside the Particle Storm.
The only real perceivable flaw on this album, besides aforementioned monotony, is that the band kind of outdoes themselves. By that I mean the standout tracks are so good, the rest can appear weak by comparison. But really, every track on here is excellent – only a couple even approach filler.
It's classic, well, because most every song on here deserves to go down as death metal excellence, and comes together as Dark Tranquillity's finest hour. Hopefully it will inspire young metalheads like myself to create similarly astounding music with the musical complexity and songwriting skill present here.
Recommended listening:
Nothing to No One
Terminus (Where Death is Most Alive)
Icipher
Misery’s Crown
The Mundane and the Magic
But you absolutely need the entire thing.
