It was the blessed year of 1993 when I got the first full-length album by this Swedish company that still makes music to this day: Dark Tranquillity. After Skydancer, because that was the title of that album, many others followed. Not all of them being as good, I have to admit, as for example The Gallery (1995), The Mind’s I (1997) or Projector (1999). But I have continued to follow the band around bullhorn and only remaining band member of the old days, Michael Stanne.
Despite the fact that Stanne also puts a lot of his energy in other bands, such as The Halo Effect, he can’t keep from nourishing his baby and – with almost an entirely new line-up, except for Brändström – putting together a new album. Endtime Signals is album number 13 and successor of the in 2020 released Moment which holds a number of fine Swedish melodic death metal songs too.
Meanwhile, we were already being swamped, as befits promotional purposes of course, with a handful of singles. All three being of an exceptionally high level, certainly on technique, melody and execution. We obviously have nothing more to tell nor teach the Swedes. No less than nine new songs to discover, provided you have already listened to the singles of course!
A telling, melancholic guitar part opens Shivers And Voids and immediately has a few edges, some rhythmic waltzing and indeed those characteristic Stanne sounds. The background is carefully colored with electronics as we are used to. Fundamentally, this first song of the album is a typical Dark Tranquillity song. It seems as though the changes in the line-up did not really effect it at all. Which is a good thing, of course. Luckily, Unforgivable comes in with its piercing blastbeat to spice things up and not only rhythmically. The lead line and the vocals in the chorus are also finger-licking, thumb-licking and I-don’t-know-what-else-licking good. No Mercy For The Looooossstttt! Neuronal Fire fires powerful steaming and pounding rounds while a song like Not Nothing shows, for the first time on this record, that Stanne’s clean vocals are still particularly good.
And then, well… Something happens that I was not really expecting to happen on the album. It starts with Drowned Out Voices, where the clean vocals run chills down your entire body. The very emotional background of these Swedes really comes to the surface on the majestic, calm, almost classical One Of Us Is Gone. The dragging and lingering drum parts that team up with Brändström’s electronica to start The Last Imagination embrace that sensitive middle section on the record. This Is The Last Pageeeee!
The Swedes of Dark Tranquillity remain at the forefront of melodic death metal. This latest record Endtime Signals is yet another proof that a band can keep and guard its distinctive sound and still sound fresh but not too fruity. I repeat: No Mercy For The Looossttt!
Score:
91/100
Label:
Century Media Records, 2024
Tracklisting:
- Shivers And Voids
- Unforgivable
- Neuronal Fire
- Not Nothing
- Drowned Out Voices
- One Of Us Is Gone
- The Last Imagination
- Enforced Perspective
- Our Disconnect
- Wayward Eyes
- A Bleaker sun
- False Reflection
Line-up:
- Michael Stanne – Vocals
- Martin Brändström – Keyboards, programming, electronics
- Johan Reinholdz – Guitar
- Christian Jansson – Bass
- Joakim Strandberg Nilson – Drums
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