It overall is probably the most interesting, diverse, and catchy of all their albums. people say there are no good melodies on the album? abso-fuckin-lutely bollocks. the melodies found all over the place just arent your tired-old-gothenburg-melodeath-typical melodies which are found on TJR, although thing is since TJR is one of the first melodeath albums i heard so it still sounds great. however, Dark Tranquility's Damage Done is a victim of this "gothenburg-grown-tired" syndrome, i find the album a complete snoozefest. way too generic and formulaic gothenburg. however, it seems that that is what most people want. i don't. RTR, on the other hand, while it has its flaws (Anders sounds bad in parts as usual, muddy production (though not as bad as the mess that is STYE production-wise)), is just a breath of fresh air for me. they packed so many styles and feels into the album, from the anthemic (ex: RTR, System, Trigger, Dark Signs, Black And White), to the thrashy stuff (ex: System, Drifter, Egonomic), plus excellent melodic tracks with melodies that are far more interesting and appealing to me than the gothenburg sound nowadays (Minus, Dismiss The Cynics, Free Fall, Dark Signs), those are just examples. Listen to the melodic riffing and leads in Minus or the beautiful clean break in Dismiss the Cynics, those melodies are some of the strongest of IF's career. People say there are no leads or harmonies? bollocks again. the lead in the middle of Drifter is just sublime, as well as the leads in Minus, Dismiss The Cynics, Dark Signs, etc. These arent "guitar solos" as much as just "leads", so i guess if you are a solo freak thats a negative, but if you are, why would you be listening to IF anyway? shouldnt you be out listening to CoB or some wanker band? The riffing i find to be excellent as well, like i said, its quite diverse, as it ranges from heavy to thrashy to melodic.... Egonomic, Drifter, Dark Signs, for example have awesome and catchy riffs.
overall its the diversity and the general strength of the songs that does it for me. simply put, "gothenburg-melodic-death" just doesn't do it for me anymore. those melodies sound so tired.
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