Dark Tranquillity - New Album "Endtime Signals" out 2024-08-16

[mindd]

 

[Xpyro125]

Really enjoyed the song, definitely one I see myself listening to more of than The Last Imagination. Definitely surprised me to see a new single since I follow them in didn’t see anything. Can’t really complain here.

 

[ThePhobiac]

This one was a miss for me, at least for now, but I appreciate the energy. Could be a grower?

 

[A88]

Nice change of pace. This is like... Melodeath band actually doing some DM instrumentation. Unheard of.

 

[DE4life]

It's alright. I prefer a bit more melody in my music typically, but tracks like this can be fine as part of a whole album. Production seems like it's going to be a bit beefier on this album which makes a change.

 

[Xpyro125]

It's alright. I prefer a bit more melody in my music typically, but tracks like this can be fine as part of a whole album. Production seems like it's going to be a bit beefier on this album which makes a change.

That’s the sort of thing I hate about modern metalcore, but I think the balance of melody and almost BM-style heaviness (Especially since it isn’t any sort of double drop g bullshit that frowns out the bass) is pretty nice, and the guitarwork in the chorus is classic Gothenburg, so I think it actually works really well.

The production is a really nice touch as well, and I think this sort of style could’ve made Encircled— A song that feels a lot like this— so much more incredible than it turned out.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Bit of a contrarian take, but I honestly feel like the production -- which I feel is very smooth and polished, but lacking any real weight or heaviness -- works against songs like this. It's sort of the In Flames problem. This song with Fredrik Nordstrom or Tue Madsen production would be quite solid. As it is, while the mix is very clean and dynamic, it lacks a certain punch. I think Jens Bogren's mixing better suits bands like Katatonia than DT, and this has been the case since he started mixing their albums, beginning with Construct.

 

[mindd]

A new one.

 

[Xpyro125]

It’s alright. Admittedly, I think I’d like it a lot more if Cemetery Skyline didn’t exist, but that band just spoiled me with great Stanne clean vocals. There’s something seriously off about them here, but I’m just glad we have a DT song with them, though I am worried about the rest of the album being more midtempo and standard-sounding.

Speaking of Cemetery Skyline, they released a new song, The Coldest Heart, just a day before Not Nothing. It’s alright too, but In Darkness was so much better imo.

 

[The Grayfox]

The Coldest Heart is the weakest of the three singles for me, by far. It started out strong with almost Type O vibes and then it took a dive and didn't recover. I actually like Not Nothing a lot more than The Coldest Heart.

 

[mindd]

Official video for Not Nothing.


Oh man, I'm disappointed, they are back to the regular Ullaeus-style silliness lol
Honestly, this feels like such a downgrade after Atoma and Moment MVs. Forward Momentum had such a great video and The Dark Unbroken and Eyes of the World were very professionally filmed and edited, this in comparison with its awful green screen editing and effects looks really amateur, like "filmed on an iPhone and hastily edited in After Effects" amateur
Then again, maybe they overspent on the Moment stuff (I remember they also did an empty theater covid livestream show) and had to cut the budget this time? I see that this time it was Sundin editing both Not Nothing and Unforgivable videos and Ullaeus and Florin just filming.

 

[ThePhobiac]

I actually think it's pretty cool for how budget it is. Sort of like the video for Misery's Crown but with more pizazz.

Definitely agree that Ulleaus has a special talent for making any band he works with look silly, lol. But I think his cinematography is good. The music video for Uniformity, for example, is a little bit campy, but I like how it's shot.

 

[mindd]

The video itself is okay-ish, it does its job. It's just disappointing to me after the better-made ones from the two previous cycles.

On Ullaeus - I like the video for Uniformity more than the new one.
I also wanted to praise the Zero Distance video, which was also a bit silly, but for some reason always looked really cool to me, but that wasn't made by Ullaeus.

 

[DE4life]

I have to be honest and say I could not care less about music videos. I used to like IF's just because they were often kind of weird and interesting, but otherwise... no, don't care. I mean, really, when you've hit this peak:



Everything else is simply vanilla in comparison.

 

[The Grayfox]

Remember when Ullaeus' videos were the big thing and every band wanted to use him? Now when you see he's done the video, there's almost a groan of "aw come on, not another one." He's very good at what he does, but he's also oversaturated at this point imo. I don't really care about music videos either though. Sometimes I'll see one that is pretty cool, but usually by the next day I've forgotten about it. When MTV, MuchMusic, etc. became a thing of the past, music videos sort of went with them. They're still good promotion but lyric videos and visualizers get the job done at a huge fraction of the cost.

This one in particular has a huge Niklas Sundin vibe, with his art featured very prominently throughout. Even though I'm a very big fan of Sundin's art, I don't really like this video.

 

[The Grayfox]

Cemetery Skyline released another single, Torn Away, and announced that their upcoming album "Nordic Gothic" will be out October 11.

This one definitely has an 80s goth feel to it. I'm getting some Sisters of Mercy vibes. I like it better than The Coldest Heart, but it doesn't quite reach In Darkness levels for me. Regardless, I'm looking forward to this album quite a bit.

 

[Xpyro125]

Not Nothing’s alright, I don’t have too much to say about it aside from not being the biggest in Stanne’s cleans here, though maybe Cemetery Skyline’s spoiled me. Unforgivable is still far and away my favorite of the three singles.

That being said, I’m just not excited for Nordic Gothic. Violent Storm was good, love the multiple key changes, and In Darkness is simply perfect, but The Coldest Heart and Torn Away are pretty forgettable to me— Good in the moment, like many things 80s, but they just don't stick with me whatsoever. Much like Sundowning by Sleep Token, I think there’ll be a lot of variety with this album, which I do like, but it’ll probably be too lacking in substance for me. In Darkness definitely makes it all worth it though, the song is genuinely phenomenal.

 

[The Grayfox]

I think In Darkness is so good that I have to look forward to Nordic Gothic in the hopes that there will be at least one more song that is in the same vein. Also, there are live videos on YouTube of some of the other songs from the album:

 

[Xpyro125]

Yeah, definitely liking Never Look Back more than the last two singles already.

 

[mindd]

One day until release. My copy was shipped yesterday, so not gonna reach my player until a week later, so Spotify it would be I guess.

The boys have played a surprise show with a rarities setlist after a Q&A session yesterday!

Dark Tranquillity Setlist at Summer Breeze 2024

Get the Dark Tranquillity Setlist of the concert at Flugplatz des Aeroclubs Dinkelsbühl, Dinkelsbühl, Germany on August 13, 2024 and other Dark Tranquillity Setlists for free on setlist.fm!

www.setlist.fm