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What’s the 4-1-1?
Melodic metal titans Dark Tranquillity release Fiction.
Genre
Melodic death metal
The Good
To start off the album we get a great song called “Nothing to No One”.
Right from the start you know this is going to be a killer album. The music
(as with every other track) is excellent. But its Dark Tranquillity so would
you expect anything less? This opener is a strong storm but it also loosens
up and we get to see a lighter side of it with the backing piano pieces that
fuse well amongst the hard sound of everything else. “The Lesser Faith” is
another track with a good sense of the keyboards. They create a nice ambience
for the track and it will get the listener in a care free mood and just right
there into the music.
“Blind at Heart” has a grand melodic guitar
piece contained in it that fits well with the vocal style throughout the
song. The track “Inside the Particle Storm” is an epic song.
Epic. The atmosphere right from the start is incredible; it really captures
you and just brings you inside the storm so to speak. It’s really different
from the other tracks but also the same. Weird, I know, you will just have
to hear it to understand. “Focus Shift” provides a nice thrashy
feel.
The Bad
On the track “Misery’s Crown” there is some clean vocals
which I couldn’t get into. It just didn’t seem to fit on the
album. The song is amazing though, great lyrics and music, only the clean
vocals are what I had a problem with.
The Verdict
What you have here is an album made up of that “Gothenburg sound”.
And you have that because Dark Tranquillity is pretty much the pioneers of
it. The album is thrashy, technical, and brutal and at the same time, very
melodic; which is what makes Dark Tranquillity have a recognizable sound.
One thing that I love is the vocals of Mikael Stanne. His type of screaming
is impressive to me. Another thing that is cool about this album is that
every track has its own presence. Mainly because the electronics used in
the tracks, but it creates a vibe for each one. Out of everything though
the thing that stands out the most to me is the samples/keyboards of Martin
BrandStorm. Every part fits where it is at. He did a good job of lining everything
up to be correct and sound good at the same time.
Did You Know?
Guitarist Niklas Sundin wrote the lyrics for two In Flames albums; “The
Jester Race” and “Whoracle”, based on concepts by Anders
Friden. He also translated lyrics from Swedish to English for “Colony."
Rating:  out
of 5
--Derek Carey
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DARK
TRANQUILLITY
