Dark Tranquility – Endtime Signals Review

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I have never hidden my predilection for Melodic Death Metal here at these pages. It’s so cool when to have a band from these Metal subgenre here to review. I’m particularly attracted by the dissonances and contrasts it delivers like the melodic guitars intertwined with harsh grows and vocals plus the variations some bands deliver. Some get more melodic and other get more death, if you know what I mean, but the contrasts are always there.

If memory serves me right, the first Melodic Death Metal I’d ever known was Arch Enemy circa 2006 or 2007 when I used to download music files from eMule – does anybody here remember eMule? Fun fact is that it took a while to get they had female vocals. I was immediately attracted to their music, however, I didn’t know their were from a Metal subgenre I wasn’t aware.It’ swas circa 2010 that I met other bands as October Tide, In Flames, At the Gates, Amon Amarth, and, of course, Dark Tranquility, the band we’re honoring today with their newest release called “Endtime Signals” after a four-year hiatus. Needless to reinforce the importance of the band to Melodic Death Metal – as pioneers – to Metal music itself and to myself as I love the band.

Hearing to “Endtime Signals” I got the took the same path as their pioneer peers, more notably, In Flames and At the Gates, bands that added other elements to their music and, of course, rising a lot of controversiesas it would be expected. On the other hand, this album is a kind of return to the old sonancy plus songs with the aforementioned elements from other genres. There are many elements of New Metal and Metalcore here as it gets clear with the ballad “False Reflection” with a clean voice, some piano and some effects. The blend of old style of opening track “Shivers and Voids” its following “Unforgivable” and the new trend “A Bleaker Sun” isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes some effort to die-hard fans swallow tracks as “Our Disconnect.” They aren’t bad, it’s just they are full of a blend many don’t take it. I have to say after a while and gone the emotion of listening to the album I got a little bored.

Ok, breathe, “Endtime Signals” isn’t that simple. There are great songs here as, for instance, “Neuronal Fire,” a track which is a mix of the good old sonancy with the new. From where I’m standing the outcome is fantastic. It’s when “Not Nothing” comes that the album starts to tend to the new paterns of the band. But, still, the old Dark Tranquility is here. Just a little bit different. There is something about the agony the band delivers that gets me by the guts.

It would be very easy to crucify the band here, but we all know bands change. Dark Tranquility did. It’s up to us, old and new fans say what we like. Well, from where I’m standing “Endtime Signals” is different, but good even though the boring tracks.

Dark Tranquility “Endtime Signals” will be released on August 16th via Century Media Records.

Track Listing:

  1. Shivers and Voids
  2. Unforgivable
  3. Neuronal Fire
  4. Not Nothing
  5. Drowned Out Voices
  6. One of Us Is Gone
  7. The Last Imagination
  8. Enforced Perspective
  9. Our Disconnect
  10. Wayward Eyes
  11. A Bleaker Sun
  12. False Reflection

Bonus Tracks:
13. Zero Sum
14. In Failure