Well, this is actually something I posted on the Opeth-forum some time ago, but here you go:
Dark Tranquillity, formed in late eighties, originally had the following members: guitarists Niklas Sundin and Mikael Stanne, vocalist Anders Fridén, bassist Martin Henriksson and drummer Anders Jivarp. Their songs were mainly composed by Sundin and Henriksson together, with some help from Jivarp, whereas majority of their lyrics were written by Sundin and the rest by Stanne (who also performed backing and "clean" vocals).
After a couple of succesful, yet unnoticed demos ("Trail of Life Decayed" and "A Moonclad Reflection"), DT released their first full-lenght album "Skydancer" (Spinefarm Records) in 1993. It was an epic masterpiece, full of strong, well-constructed songs with amazing melodic depth. Their use of several tempo-changes, a mix of "metallish" and acoustic parts and various, long, rarely repeated riffs gave them the reputation as "creators" of the so-called "gothenburg-sound", alongside with At The Gates. The lyrics on the album were very long, somewhat shamanistic proclamations or incantations. Also, the use of a female vocalist (Anna-Kajsa Avehåll, although only in a couple of songs) as well as Stanne's clean voice in addition to Fridén's screaming was something new in death-metal. Although a bit underproduced, Skydancer is still among those few truly original masterpieces, which will stand through time.
Skydancer gave the band wide popularity in metal-underground, but otherwise it went quite unnoticed. The band encountered some problems at that time, when Fridén left the band (to later join In Flames). Stanne took now all the singing-responsibilities and a new guitarist (Fredrik Johansson) joined them. In that form, the band fine-tuned and improved its sound to the next level. In early 1995 they released a Mini-CD (again by Spinefarm) entitled "Of Chaos and Eternal Night". The clean singing was gone and the guitars were more prevalent, but the same basic melodic strength was still there.
Later in the same year, the band released its long-anticipated second full-lenght, "The Gallery" (Osmose Productions) - and it was worth the waiting. Hailed by many as the best melodic death-metal album ever, it combined the fast, entwined guitars with precise drumming and sudden "soft" parts. The music was written by the bassist and both guitarists with some additional help from the drummer. The lyrics were now somewhat shorter than before, yet still very unique in their metaphoral approach; Stanne had by this time taken the major part of lyrics-writing to himself, with Sundin contributing only a little. The occasional female vocals were there again, this time by Eva-Marie Larsson, but Stanne used his low voice only for screaming and speech - there was practically no clean male vocals on the album.
The Gallery was a breakthrough and the band toured a lot after its release. They started writing new material quite soon. By late 1996, they had recorded their next album and released a Mini-CD containing a couple of songs from those sessions (plus a horrible techno-remix song called "Archetype" made from parts of their songs). "Enter Suicidal Angels" introduced the band's new sound, which was more straighforward and aggressive.
In 1997 the band finally released the full album, "The Mind's I" (still on Osmose), which divided their fans in two - many liked their new, rawer approach with short, fast songs; yet there were some, who disliked their near abandonment of the "tranquillity"-part. The trio of Sundin/Johansson/Henriksson was responsible of the song-writing and Sundin and Stanne wrote the lyrics, which by this time had become quite philosophic. Only one song had female vocals, sung by Sara Svensson.
Although the response for the album wasn't so firm, the following tour was a success. Afterwards, the band withdrew from the public and decided to take a step away from the path they had been traveling so far. It took over two years, before their next album, "Projector", saw the light of day - by that time Johansson had already departed with the band, although he still appeared on the record.
Projector (Century Media, 1999) was a bold step into new areas in metal-music. It featured once again clean male vocals and the addition of some synths brought a refreshingly new sound to a couple of songs. However, the album still featured the trademark DT-guitaring and Stanne still growled a lot - thus, overall, the album was not any "lighter" than the previous ones. Henriksson did now the most of composing, with lots of help from Jivarp and Sundin. Johansson had participated only in a couple of songs and Stanne made one short song all by himself. The lyrics, now written by Stanne alone, were darker in mood, concentrating into the "self". One song had female vocals (by Johanna Anderson).
The departure of Johansson forced some line-up changes in the band. Henriksson took the guitar and left the bass for Michael Nicklasson, who had for long been a friend of the band-members. Also, a new man responsible for the electronics was found in Martin Brändström. The band once again embarked on a tour, this time with In Flames, Children of Bodom and Arch Enemy.
The band's latest album, Haven (Century Media, 2000) was once again a move to a new frontier. It relied heavily on the electronics in sound, and the songs were once again faster and shorter. Sundin had by this time stopped contributing to the songwriting, and most of it was done by Jivarp and Henriksson, with some help from the new guys. Stanne wrote once again all the lyrics and there weren't any clean singing, except in one song.
Some people resented the change towards "techno" and somewhat "happier", catchy melodies, but the band's incredible ability to retain some old "melodic-death-metal" elements (original guitar-riffs, growled vocals and intense drumming) and combine them with new, fresh synthetic sounds was hailed by many. Another succesful tour followed and at the moment the band is rumored to be writing new material for the forthcoming album, which will see the day of light next year.
I like all their albums, Enter Suicidal Angels the least and The Gallery the most. Of songs, I would recommend "A Bolt of Blazing Gold" from Skydancer, "Punish My Heaven" from The Gallery, "Hedon" from The Mind's I, "Nether Novas" from Projector and "The Wonders at Your Feet" from Haven.
-Villain ("the walking Dark Tranquillity -encyclopedia")
