Dark Tranquillity — The Gallery

I need to call out the most obvious thing which is—are we fucking even serious here? Is contrarianism such an addictive drug that we end up in a situation where “Projector”, an inferior album, ends up with a way higher score than “The Gallery”? I get that it’s not going to be up to everyone’s tastes, but holy shit do some people need to get a grip. What, you’re mad that a band did not sacrifice melody in a ritual to become the next most brutal thing of all time? That they weren’t trying to be the next Cannibal Corpse, Obituary or their fellow countrymen, Entombed or Dismembered? All great bands, mind you, but it seems that what is lost on everyone here is that endlessly emulating would only lead to stagnation and decay, not preservation of death metal.

Okay, rant over.

Dark Tranquility has been among my favorite melodeath bands for a while now, along with Insomnium, Gates Of Ishtar and Intestine Baalism—see, it is indeed possible to like different things—and out of all four, they are by far the most important ones when it comes to development of this very much controversial style, along with At The Gates and In Flames before they sold out for a castrated version of nu or groove metal, or whatever it is called. Focusing only on the big three, DT is by far the most consistent, and in my eyes, the one band with a large enough number of good albums and enough stylistical evolution to make them not boring. And it all began here—well, effectively here.

First thing that I can safely say after I played this for the very first few times, and those harmonies in “Punish My Heaven” came in, is that Dark Tranquility are definitely huge Iron Maiden fans. The lead guitar work of the entire album is seeping with 80s Maiden style harmonies. That’s not to say that there isn’t death metal riffing on here, but even that is drenched with melodies that occasionally this album just threatens to jump into borderline power metal Maiden-worship, but it never jumps that crucial final step, which in this case is good. Enraged, melancholic and devastating high growls certainly help keep things firmly grounded in the melodeath side of things.

But one thing that truly makes this album stand out from, say “The Jester Race” or “Slaughter Of The Soul”, is the expert use of dynamics and acoustic/piano passages. DT were already trying to innovate things on debut already, but here they truly stumbled across something special and were smart and wise enough to hold onto it like their life depended on it. To put into simpler terms, there tends to be parts of songs that are bit subdued in their riffage and even lead work, but then everything goes just fucking insane a moment later. Take for example, “Edenspring”, which still among my favorite DT songs—beginning starts with some simple cymbals and bass-line before it explodes into the main theme of the song, then later on there is a pseudo-accoustic part with some melodic lead work before it explodes into insane riffage and solo.

There’s still some surprises here and there. The title track and “...Of Melancholy Burning” feature female vocals which is honestly a bit of a surprise for a mostly growled melodeath release, but then again 90s were also the time which would see the birth of bands like Tristania, so in hindsight, it’s not too much surprising. Those female vocals also appear during the quieter parts of the song, which again loops me back onto that aforementioned “subdued part followed by the barrage of melodeath riffs” dynamism.

Overall, this is indeed an excellent album, don’t be fooled by the average rating. It’s been thirty years and very, very few melodeath records can top it. But still, if we’re grading by importance, even more than “The Jester Race”, even more than “Slaughter Of The Soul”, this is the one record responsible for the entire framework for melodeath to exist—yes, the same framework “The Gallery” ironically gets criticized in—and as such, it is indeed a mandatory listen

(The original, uncensored version of MA review with the original rant included)