DARK TRANQUILLITY – Moment-Review english

Pure admiration

comes over me when I listen to the new album „Moment“ by DARK TRANQILLITY (Facebook ). The hit density with which the albums will see the light of day at the end of the year is really immense. In every genre there are wonderful outputs, you just have to have them. „Moment“ by DARK TRANQUILLITY is definitely one of them. So for all I care, this year there should only be records under the Christmas tree.

Since felt eternities

DARK TRANQUILLITY has been accompanying me. They have always been a big thing and almost always delivered fantastic music. I remember for example the album „Projector“ (1999), which was an absolute highlight for me. But back then they were ahead of their time, because on „Projector“ they had experimented with their sound and tried out new facets. They had to take criticism for that, also from their own record label at that time. On „Projector“ (1999) they also showed soulful melancholic, even quiet moments, see for example the song „Therein“. The singing of Mikael Stanne really got under my skin and I couldn’t get enough of it. But for the hardcore death metal fans it was nothing at that time. And where do we stand today? Many bands have taken advantage of the contrast between hard growls and screams with clean vocals. Today it is almost standard.

Anything but standard

is the songwriting of DARK TRANQUILLITY. The arrangements convey a penchant for perfection and in fact have almost a unique selling point in this genre. The long time for the creation of „Moment“ has certainly borne rich fruit, which is probably also due to the two new full-time guitarists Christopher Amott (ex-Arch Enemy, ex-Armageddon) and Johan Reinholdz (Andromeda, Nonexist), who have replaced the long-time guitarist and founding member Niklas Sundin.

A fresh breeze

Comment from singer Mikael Stanne:

Fresh ears, fresh ideas, fresh thoughts about what the songs could be. Johan’s been a fan of the band for a long time. He knows all the old songs, and he can play all the old songs. He pulls out songs that we’ve written ages ago, and goes, ‘more like this?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t even remember that song.’ So, that’s cool to have a musician with a fan’s frame of reference. With Chris, he’s very musical. He has a very cool sense of melody. The emotion he lets out while playing is awesome. To have them being a position to challenge what we used to do or have done over and over is great. They’re helping us change things up a bit.

Pressetext Century Media

Let’s listen and enjoy this first:

Here we have a direct example of a great symbiosis of hard melodic death metal and soulful, under the skin singing, mind you, by one singer! The way of the performance is indescribable. Of course, this is no old-school death metal, but DARK TRANQUILLITY have been more than that for a long time. Old School is cool, but you don’t want a grilled pork chop every day, but something different, something more sophisticated. And that’s exactly what you find at DARK TRANQUILLITY. With „Failstate“, for example, they have a really snappy megamelodic grenade in their collection. With a lot of groove and melody and healthy hardness the atmospheric track marches forward, grabbing the listener by the balls, so that you have no other choice but to go along.

Melodic Revelations

at every corner enmesh the listener, who is always looking forward to the next moments, when he is spoiled again with brilliant ideas and chords to kneel down. The great riffing paired with the beautiful lead guitar playing inspires over and over again, even if the guitar playing changes into valuable soli parts. You can’t fool the singer Mikael Stanne anymore anyway. He masters his art of singing in perfection and does not give himself any nakedness. That has everything it needs: power, feeling and rhythm!

Conclusion

This year I really have a problem naming my album of the year. So many awesome outputs have come up and captured me. This album will also be on my shortlist.

DARK TRANQUILLITY have raised the bar for themselves once again. The question really arises whether you can jump even higher. But that is not necessary. You just have to keep writing great music and the world is fine. It doesn’t always have to be possible to increase everything. Often you just have to maintain your high level. And with the album „Moment“ this level is still on a level that is difficult to reach. DARK TRANQUILITY just float in other spheres and gain 10 out of 10 points.

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