DARK TRANQUILLITY „Damage Done”

Music: Melodic Death Metal
Duration: 45:00 minutes (11 songs)
Master songs: Impossible to choose, every singe one of them!

Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates, Soilwork and In Flames are THE bands that created the Gothenburg sound (also called Swedish or Melodic Death Metal) some years ago, and found the path that is nowadays being followed by many other bands like Norhter and Killswitch Engage.

I must say that Dark Tranquillity is totally back on track with this new devastating album, most of the gothic elements have been removed and the vocals aren't clear anymore. DT has raised (again) to the top of the Swedish metal: fast and aggressive, but melodic with Metallica thrash influences. But now for DT: the music is not only fast, aggressive and thrashy, but also powerful, progressive and still gothic in a way. The songwriting is excellent, it's way complexer than you might think when you hear it, you'll find a lot of brilliant melodies on this album, well integrated into the heaviness. And for the vocals…Pure aggression, after hearing this one the damage is certainly done.

It's weird what this does to you, it's not like one song jumps out and you want to keep repeating that track. It's different, you just want to repeat the whole album time and time again, and therefore, I can compare this one with a classic like At The Gates' Slaughter Of Souls. Not a lot of variety, but killing songs all the way to the end: a somewhat slower track (and the vocalist keeps his mouth shut this time), but filled with (again) those beautiful melodies.

I Chose to rate this album 10/10 (although it's not really a classic), for I just can't think of a way how this release could be better, I listened to this cd over and over again, but I can't discover any weak moments in these rocksollid songs, besides, I keep on listening to it. Damage Done…

note: 10/10

Tracklist

01 Final Resistance
02 Hours Past In Exile
03 Monochromatic Stains
04 Single Part Of Two
05 The Treason Wall
06 Format C For Cortex
07 Damage Done
08 Cathode Ray Sunshine
09 The Enemy
10 I, Deception
11 Ex Nihilo