Dark Tranquillity are one of the most influential Death Metal bands around. Their style is generally classified as Melodic Death Metal, a sub-genre that attaches sensibilities from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal to the rough and tumble genre of Death Metal. Dark Tranquillity, along with At The Gates and In Flames, helped launch a whole style of music, named Gothenburg Metal, after the city in which they're from.This specific offshoot of Metal would later influence would be called the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, that was prevalent in the late 90's and early 00's, with notable bands being Killswitch Engage, Otep, Mudvayne, As I Lay Dying and Avenged Sevenfold.
Fiction is Dark Tranquillity's 8th album, and marks their 18th year as a band. With each release, DT seem to open up their sound more and more, bringing in different elements into the fold that you wouldn't think fit, but are executed so elegantly and effortlessly that it just flows right on through, showing off the versatility of these Swedes. Fiction is 10 tracks of heavy riffage. the riffs in tracks like Nothing to No One, Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive) and Blind at Heart are as heavy as they come, really showing off that Neo-Classical influenced NWOBHM style. One of the things that first attracted me to DT is that lead singer Mikael Stanne's vocals are understandable, even though he's all over the place, going from guttural growls to raspy screaming, to even clean singing on Misery's Crown. You might have difficulty understanding everything he's saying, but you can tell there is some real depth to the lyrics, and understandable enough to be able to sing (or growl) along with him, which is something that has always distanced me from the Death Metal and Black Metal genres. I might enjoy a song technically, but if I can't understand what the singer is saying then I just can't get into it, and Stanne avoids that in his work with DT.
One of the things that keeps me interested in DT is that they are never content with finding one formula and sticking with it, they expand their sound while still making solid entries in the genre. On Fiction, you'll find an uncommonly large amount of synth and piano work, plunging along these beautiful melodies with the riffs and blast beats hitting hard, and I think it does nothing but add wonderful texture to the songs. On Misery's Crown, Stanne does most of the song in a pretty nice sounding clean singing voice. In a genre like Death Metal that can easily get stagnant, it's really nice to see these guys playing around with these ideas. Opening up their sound without selling out. Just because Icipher has a really prominent piano doesn't mean you can call it anything other than a solid Death Metal track.
I really, really like Dark Tranquillity, and it was hard for me to pick which album of theirs I wanted to recommend the most, but Fiction has been with me the longest, and I find it one of theirs that I return to more often than others. If you've never stepped foot in the Death Metal genre or you're a die hard fan and are looking for something new and different, you'd be hard pressed to find a better gateway than Fiction.
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