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Predictability used to mean much the same thing as consistent quality, at least when applied to 2010's We Are The Void, a sign of high quality at the time for Dark Tranquillity and still something of an underrated gem in their discography. Several albums later, it's much harder to describe the band's predictability in quite the same way. There has been barely any shift in the Dark Tranquillity formula since at least 2005 and it would have been something of a miracle if there hadn't been something of a gradual downgrade in quality over those twenty years. And it says much for Dark Tranquillity that albums such as Atoma and Moment have been as good as they have, containing real bright sparks of songwriting inspiration even if overall it started to feel as though the band were treading water. It also says a great deal that Endtime Signals is a better album than either, more confident, more memorable, and more distinctly aggressive and metallic. The songwriting, always a particular skill of this band, is at a peak, providing plenty of darkly endearing moments that will quickly ease their way into your heart. Melancholic grandeur is at its best on the likes of Not Nothing, mixing Mikael Stanne's yearning clean vocals with plenty of his harsh growls and proving him to be one of, if not the best melodic death vocalists in the game. Throughout the album he's the MVP, guiding the listener along and providing moments both heart-rendingly beautiful and full of gothic angst. And the rest of the band aren't far behind. Bursts of melodic guitar soloing on early album highlight Unforgiveable are icing on the top of an already delicious cake base, a gothic-infused earworm that gallops in as powerfully as it shifts to its uplifting chorus. The surprisingly chuggy Drowned Out Voices adds some Soilwork-esque aggression before ending on something a little proggier, built upon on the gloomy Our Disconnect, which takes some time to meander instrumentally before returning to one final chorus. One of Us is Gone, the band's tribute to fallen comrade Fredrik Johannsen who played guitar on their early output and died of cancer in 2022, is especially moving, having the kind of doomy grandeur that you'd expect of My Dying Bride. The following Last Imagination takes that baton and runs with it, a keyboard-drenched opening leading to a Character-feeling gallop as the band move on, the juxtaposition of piano and crunching riffage as effective as ever. New bassist Christian Jansson (Grand Cadaver, Pagandom) and drummer Joakim Strandberg-Nilsson (Faithful Darkness, ex-In Mourning) have fit in perfectly and although neither particularly stands out, they provide a more than competent backing to the guitar/keyboards/vocals foreground. It is a long album at over fifty minutes yet it's hard to see what deserves cutting - even the flow of the record is solid, late tracklisting examples such as the thrashier A Bleaker Sun chuntering along nicely enough with a touch of At The Gates. As ever, the Dark Tranquillity formula could stand to take a little more experimentation, yet few will argue with clean-sung finale False Reflection by the time it arrives, ending things with an emotion-imbued classy bow. Another more than solid set of songs to add to their discography. |
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Killing Songs : Unforgiveable, Not Nothing, Drowned Out Voices, One of Us is Gone, Our Disconnect, False Reflection |
Goat quoted 80 / 100 | |||||||||||||||
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