Their compositions structurally have been the same pretty much always, but because they write excellent sections structural predictability does not allow to predict what kind of flavour and groove awaits. Numerous stand out songs come for me no matter which album I think of. Insanity's crescendo is a 7minute masterpiece where normal structure is not so obvious to me. Also, The Gallery is an album title song where also female vocals are featured to a great effect. PS: This is melodic death metal to me, if even on the softer side...
Melodic death metal doesn't need to be much more than melodic, uptempo metal with death growls. Maybe there's some faster "death metal" sections with double kick drums and tremolo picking, but that's the most basic description. This is actually how Dark Tranquillity sounds, granted it is one of their more commercial sounding songs. They helped form this style of keyboard-heavy melodeath and have been doing it for a while. He does use the clean vocals sparingly though - maybe once in a whole album or not at all. They show up more often in this newest album and I think he chooses to do so to convey melancholy.
It really is the bread and butter of Dark Tranquillity. They're pretty simple and formulaic in structure and composition, which isn't bad in any way, because they're so incredible at getting the atmosphere down that you can just close your eyes and vibe with it. My favorite melodic death since I started listening 20 years ago, it's been a joy following how they've evolved their sound through the years, while still staying pretty true to themselves.
@@UnlimitedAuthority Totally agree! I only discovered them a year ago, but already whenever I'm in the mood to just chill with that emotion, they don't disappoint.
Not a big Dark Tranquility fan, but their live show was one of the most fun metal shows that I've seen, with a super positive vibe from the crowd, and some rando that I've never met just threw me into the crowd and made me crowd surf, which was actually really fun (And no one stole my wallet). Plus, they played their set very well and I couldn't detect any mistakes. Great live show! Would definitely recommend seeing them.
This is more like it. Dark Tranquillity were one of the OG melodeath bands along with In Flames and At the Gates. They're also my favorite of that trio. Their '95 album The Gallery is probably my favorite melodeath album, and I think their discography up until Fiction in '07 is incredibly solid. I do think the albums after that started retreading the same ground, though I did enjoy their last album quite a bit. One thing for sure is that they've very much simplified their sound over the years, while their early work had a lot of interesting, complex guitar drum work. The trade-off is that I think their "catchiest" material has been from that '00 to '07 era. This is a decent first listen, but it is indeed pretty standard and was clearly designed to be an accessible single. I would've recommended Punish My Heaven (from their early work; one of my favorite songs to play on guitar), and Lost to Apathy or Monochromatic Stains from their later albums. In general, melodeath isn't a genre that's super original in terms of structure, rhythm, or harmony; the attraction is in that combination of metal aggression and accessible melodicism.
Be'Lakor are best in show right now imho. Abeyance is a good song to do I'd say. Oh! I'd be remiss if I didn't say you NEED to check out the classics. Slaughter of the Soul by At The Gates was a game changer
True that! Still, I've been asking for Be'lakor for about 10 months now, it's nae gonna happen I reckon. Good call on Slaughter of the Soul though, it hasn't aged a day in my opinion.
I have been a fan of Dark Tranquillity for 20 or so years, my favourite band, and this particular song is actually my favourite they've done. With that said, they have an incredible catalogue of music. For their heavier stuff, The Gallery and Damage Done are 2 great albums to check out. I personally like Moment, Aroma, Projector, and Character for my tastes, but they have no bad albums. :)
Dark Tranquility is my favorite band but this was not a great starting point. It’s a very mellowed out track for them, in fact this whole album isn’t the best starting point. Unless, like you said, your coming into unfamiliar with the more extreme side of metal. I’d recommend Punish My Heaven or A Bolt of Blazing Gold from their early days or Monochromatic Stains, Terminus(Where Death is Most Alive), or The Treason Wall from their middle period.
If you want Melodeath, look no further than Dark Tranquillity. They are easy top 5 band for me. Hope you check out more. A few songs to check out... the Mundane and the Magic, Lesser Faith, Atoma, and Through Smudged Lenses.
Hi Brian, sorry if I might not have been clear enough in my previous comment (about DEATH's song) : DEATH is one of the main founder or say Godfather of the Death Metal genre (besides, the singer & leader & lead guitarist Chuck Shuldiner, alas died from a brain cancer tumour at the age of 34 in 2001 but they did influence a lot of bands) , but it happens to be very melodic despite the harshness, as it is a lot influenced by both Heavy Metal & Thrash Metal...but if you want to really understand what is a Death Metal song I suggest to listen to those 3 songs : DEATH "Flattening of Emotions" remastered studio version (typical Death Metal, with a very specific rhythm at 0:48 / 0:52 and at 1:55...& even during the solo immediately after) more obvious maybe in OBITUARY : "I'm in pain", the first 30 seconds says it all, after it is their variations on the theme/their style...And MORBID ANGEL "Summoning Redemption" (the first minute after the weird album intro will be more than enough to understand that typical combination between almost slow snare drumming while the kick drum/double bass is hammering fast, while the low tuned guitars play in tremolo mode, that is the fascinating Death rythm...the song itself really calls for a reaction video if your ask me, same for the Death one above). Hope it helps....Melodeath is different, searches for more melody hook but tries to maintain a heaviness & fastness that is the genre....For me INSOMNIUM in a song like "Through the Shadow" really impersonates perfectly that subgenre...& yes it has "radio palatable"qualities, but isn't often picked by mainstream ones...
I think you've read this a thousand times between this video and the Death one, but the main bands and movement considered when you think of melodeath are the Gothenberg classic bands like Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates and In Flames (if you're going to do some In Flames, do some classic late 90s stuff since after that they didn't do melodeath anymore). Having said that, there are far more melodeath important bands outside of that scene: Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Soilwork, Children of Bodom, Carcass, Insomnium, etc...Melodeath can have clean vocals sometimes which provide the melodic part but it is not a requirement. Often times, the melody comes from lead guitars or sometimes keyboards which add some texture and atmosphere. All tha bands that I mentioned have 20 + years more or less, so they've gone through different periods with different sounds, so take that into account if you want to get the "right" impression of what melodeath is all about!
Totally with you on the 'not really understanding what death metal and black metal are', after 30 years of listening to metal. I do know that almost everything I have heard described as either is not my cup of tea. Not that I don't give it a try sometimes. No band with only harsh vocals seems to do it for me, although some with mixed harsh and clean vocals really do. It's as if there is a magic combination of clean and harsh vocals and exceptional musicianship which adds up to more then the sum of it's parts! The Jinjer, Spiritbox, some Eluveitie and most Gojira I got into over the last few years is some of my favourite music ever, but remove the clean vocal parts, and I doubt I'd have got into any of them. I general I can't be bothered with the hundreds of metal sub genres, and who fits into each one and why. Bands I like and bands I don't like is what matters, but there is a clear pattern to 'if it's called black or death metal, I'm far less likely to like what I hear'!
Whether it's for a video or not, you should check out Æther realm. Fantastic fantasy influenced Melo death. The songs I would recommend are "Death" for a shorter one, or "The sun, The moon, The stars" for a 19 minute epic
Oh man, another band with the DT acronym to confuse me. First it was Dream Theater, then Devin Townsend, and now Dark Tranquillity. 🤣 On a serious note, I'll look into some of their earlier works and see what they were doing back then.
@@CriticalReactions Yeah, the sound of early DT, In Flames, At the Gates(prolly the holy trinity of swedish MDM) that was what you were looking for.. Those are the most popular ones, but if you want some 'hidden gems' listen to Eucharist, Gates of Ishtar, Ceremonial Oath, The Moaning.. you can't go wrong with those bands
I used to enjoy DT a while ago (Character, Fiction, Construct). I totally agree with your assessment of this song. The band just sits in some sort of comfort zone. At least for this song. Like you, I don't know the rest of the album. But here, no surprises. Nothing truly revolutionary happening. They're pretty much replicating their established sound from previous albums at this point which is a bit disappointing. Thank you, Brian, for your honest reaction of this song.
Great analysis and I agree on the whole. Not too keen on the band, but the singer Mikael Stanne is one of my favourite personalities in music. He's a devoted fan of great music and I noticed him for several years going to the same gigs as I on my favourite festival - before I was told who he was... I've got the same "relation" with Mike Portnoy - not too keen on to much of the bands he's been playing with - but an awesone personality with great taste and devotion as a music fan 😊
I see new Deafheaven recommendation popped up at the end of the music video. It's been a while since you checked them out. It'd be cool if you reacted to them again
Yeah it's definitely death metal. Death metal is actually a fairly diverse sub-genre of metal, in that no matter what form the music takes, it is still defined by its vocal style. This is how we get labels like "extreme technical progressive melodic blackened homogenized jurassic gravometric death metal", for example (no that's not real lol, just making a point). It gets quite confusing sometimes. But really, at the end of the day, it's all just death metal. :)
Black Metal = Metal's punk music. Influenced by Motorhead and Venom, starts "proper" with Bathory, develops into the 2nd Wave Norwegian bands (Emperor, Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone). Typical black metal qualities are higher pitched "shriek" or "croak" vocals, tons of tremolo picking, tends to be very simple harmonically and rhythmically. Usually extremely lo-fi, where a lack of studio polish is desired. Black Metal also tends to be "brighter" in general (in terms of audio tone: less emphasis on bass, more on high mids/treble). Blast beats are incredibly common for more extreme BM. Death Metal = Basically thrash meets harsh/gutteral vocals. Though not DM themselves, Slayer had a huge influence on the genre. Starts proper with Possessed's Seven Churches in '85, with influential early bands being Death, Obituary, and Morbid Angel. Much more emphasis on bass and low end (early DM bands almost all played tuned down guitars). Early DM was also very focused on "horror" themes (blood, gore, etc.). Early DM could also use lots of tremolo picking too, but wasn't quite as ubiquitous as in BM. DM could be in some cases as simple as BM, but was also capable of being more complex, as with late Death. DM also pretty quickly combined with prog metal in the early 90s, so the thrash roots got obscured somewhat in later iterations. You can still hear some of those roots on the early melodeath albums, which basically took DM and added more elements from classic/traditional metal, especially the melodic aspects with the lead guitars and finding ways to make the typically-rhythmic harsh vocals catchier. So I think when you say you're hearing "melodic metal" in this you're not far off. Really the only DM here is indeed the harsh vocals, but it just goes to show how easily/quickly these genres evolve and get hybridized with other genres.
You know, you could have listened to 2/3 their songs, taking into account that the video length is 25mins. That could have given you better understanding of the band
I'm digging it so far. It's a fine line between the harshness of metal and the beauty of melodic writing. I just wish I could find some melodeath with some vocals that really worked for me.
![Dark Tranquillity - Eyes Of The World [Reaction/Review]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rsY79a4woIU/mqdefault.jpg)
I'll suggest This Mortal Coil by Carcass, one of the most important bands for the creation of Melodeath
Their compositions structurally have been the same pretty much always, but because they write excellent sections structural predictability does not allow to predict what kind of flavour and groove awaits.
Numerous stand out songs come for me no matter which album I think of. Insanity's crescendo is a 7minute masterpiece where normal structure is not so obvious to me. Also, The Gallery is an album title song where also female vocals are featured to a great effect.
PS: This is melodic death metal to me, if even on the softer side...
Melodic death metal doesn't need to be much more than melodic, uptempo metal with death growls. Maybe there's some faster "death metal" sections with double kick drums and tremolo picking, but that's the most basic description.
This is actually how Dark Tranquillity sounds, granted it is one of their more commercial sounding songs. They helped form this style of keyboard-heavy melodeath and have been doing it for a while. He does use the clean vocals sparingly though - maybe once in a whole album or not at all. They show up more often in this newest album and I think he chooses to do so to convey melancholy.
Love Dark Tranquility -- they're just great at conveying atmosphere and emotion.
It really is the bread and butter of Dark Tranquillity. They're pretty simple and formulaic in structure and composition, which isn't bad in any way, because they're so incredible at getting the atmosphere down that you can just close your eyes and vibe with it. My favorite melodic death since I started listening 20 years ago, it's been a joy following how they've evolved their sound through the years, while still staying pretty true to themselves.
@@UnlimitedAuthority Totally agree! I only discovered them a year ago, but already whenever I'm in the mood to just chill with that emotion, they don't disappoint.
Not a big Dark Tranquility fan, but their live show was one of the most fun metal shows that I've seen, with a super positive vibe from the crowd, and some rando that I've never met just threw me into the crowd and made me crowd surf, which was actually really fun (And no one stole my wallet). Plus, they played their set very well and I couldn't detect any mistakes. Great live show! Would definitely recommend seeing them.
That made me chuckle
This is more like it. Dark Tranquillity were one of the OG melodeath bands along with In Flames and At the Gates. They're also my favorite of that trio. Their '95 album The Gallery is probably my favorite melodeath album, and I think their discography up until Fiction in '07 is incredibly solid. I do think the albums after that started retreading the same ground, though I did enjoy their last album quite a bit. One thing for sure is that they've very much simplified their sound over the years, while their early work had a lot of interesting, complex guitar drum work. The trade-off is that I think their "catchiest" material has been from that '00 to '07 era. This is a decent first listen, but it is indeed pretty standard and was clearly designed to be an accessible single. I would've recommended Punish My Heaven (from their early work; one of my favorite songs to play on guitar), and Lost to Apathy or Monochromatic Stains from their later albums. In general, melodeath isn't a genre that's super original in terms of structure, rhythm, or harmony; the attraction is in that combination of metal aggression and accessible melodicism.
Be'Lakor are best in show right now imho. Abeyance is a good song to do I'd say.
Oh! I'd be remiss if I didn't say you NEED to check out the classics. Slaughter of the Soul by At The Gates was a game changer
True that! Still, I've been asking for Be'lakor for about 10 months now, it's nae gonna happen I reckon. Good call on Slaughter of the Soul though, it hasn't aged a day in my opinion.
I'd suggest Countless Skies by them, or An Ember's Arc
Slaughter of the Soul, Dark Tranquillity's The Gallery, and In Flames's The Jester's Race are THE classic trio of melodeath.
For me, their second album "The Gallery" remains always their highlight.
Ever heard of SAOR? If not, the song 'Forgotten Paths' could be a great start. Very atmospheric black metal I would say.
this song is so beautiful, truly a masterpiece
I have been a fan of Dark Tranquillity for 20 or so years, my favourite band, and this particular song is actually my favourite they've done. With that said, they have an incredible catalogue of music. For their heavier stuff, The Gallery and Damage Done are 2 great albums to check out. I personally like Moment, Aroma, Projector, and Character for my tastes, but they have no bad albums. :)
Dark Tranquility is my favorite band but this was not a great starting point. It’s a very mellowed out track for them, in fact this whole album isn’t the best starting point. Unless, like you said, your coming into unfamiliar with the more extreme side of metal. I’d recommend Punish My Heaven or A Bolt of Blazing Gold from their early days or Monochromatic Stains, Terminus(Where Death is Most Alive), or The Treason Wall from their middle period.
Definitely a bad starting point.
Yeah even their debut would be a better starting point
If you want Melodeath, look no further than Dark Tranquillity. They are easy top 5 band for me. Hope you check out more. A few songs to check out... the Mundane and the Magic, Lesser Faith, Atoma, and Through Smudged Lenses.
Hi Brian, sorry if I might not have been clear enough in my previous comment (about DEATH's song) : DEATH is one of the main founder or say Godfather of the Death Metal genre (besides, the singer & leader & lead guitarist Chuck Shuldiner, alas died from a brain cancer tumour at the age of 34 in 2001 but they did influence a lot of bands) , but it happens to be very melodic despite the harshness, as it is a lot influenced by both Heavy Metal & Thrash Metal...but if you want to really understand what is a Death Metal song I suggest to listen to those 3 songs : DEATH "Flattening of Emotions" remastered studio version (typical Death Metal, with a very specific rhythm at 0:48 / 0:52 and at 1:55...& even during the solo immediately after) more obvious maybe in OBITUARY : "I'm in pain", the first 30 seconds says it all, after it is their variations on the theme/their style...And MORBID ANGEL "Summoning Redemption" (the first minute after the weird album intro will be more than enough to understand that typical combination between almost slow snare drumming while the kick drum/double bass is hammering fast, while the low tuned guitars play in tremolo mode, that is the fascinating Death rythm...the song itself really calls for a reaction video if your ask me, same for the Death one above). Hope it helps....Melodeath is different, searches for more melody hook but tries to maintain a heaviness & fastness that is the genre....For me INSOMNIUM in a song like "Through the Shadow" really impersonates perfectly that subgenre...& yes it has "radio palatable"qualities, but isn't often picked by mainstream ones...
I think you've read this a thousand times between this video and the Death one, but the main bands and movement considered when you think of melodeath are the Gothenberg classic bands like Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates and In Flames (if you're going to do some In Flames, do some classic late 90s stuff since after that they didn't do melodeath anymore). Having said that, there are far more melodeath important bands outside of that scene: Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Soilwork, Children of Bodom, Carcass, Insomnium, etc...Melodeath can have clean vocals sometimes which provide the melodic part but it is not a requirement. Often times, the melody comes from lead guitars or sometimes keyboards which add some texture and atmosphere. All tha bands that I mentioned have 20 + years more or less, so they've gone through different periods with different sounds, so take that into account if you want to get the "right" impression of what melodeath is all about!
Totally with you on the 'not really understanding what death metal and black metal are', after 30 years of listening to metal. I do know that almost everything I have heard described as either is not my cup of tea. Not that I don't give it a try sometimes. No band with only harsh vocals seems to do it for me, although some with mixed harsh and clean vocals really do. It's as if there is a magic combination of clean and harsh vocals and exceptional musicianship which adds up to more then the sum of it's parts! The Jinjer, Spiritbox, some Eluveitie and most Gojira I got into over the last few years is some of my favourite music ever, but remove the clean vocal parts, and I doubt I'd have got into any of them. I general I can't be bothered with the hundreds of metal sub genres, and who fits into each one and why. Bands I like and bands I don't like is what matters, but there is a clear pattern to 'if it's called black or death metal, I'm far less likely to like what I hear'!
If you're looking for modern beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt melodeath, you want At the Gates' newer stuff. My vote is "A Stare Bound in Stone".
Whether it's for a video or not, you should check out Æther realm. Fantastic fantasy influenced Melo death. The songs I would recommend are "Death" for a shorter one, or "The sun, The moon, The stars" for a 19 minute epic
I like DT whole discography, but I think that their two first albums, Skydancer and The Gallery are the best example of melodeath
Oh man, another band with the DT acronym to confuse me. First it was Dream Theater, then Devin Townsend, and now Dark Tranquillity. 🤣
On a serious note, I'll look into some of their earlier works and see what they were doing back then.
@@CriticalReactions Yeah, the sound of early DT, In Flames, At the Gates(prolly the holy trinity of swedish MDM) that was what you were looking for.. Those are the most popular ones, but if you want some 'hidden gems' listen to Eucharist, Gates of Ishtar, Ceremonial Oath, The Moaning.. you can't go wrong with those bands
A fantastic song by Dark Tranquillity would be icipher. No cleans but melody to kneel down.
I used to enjoy DT a while ago (Character, Fiction, Construct). I totally agree with your assessment of this song. The band just sits in some sort of comfort zone. At least for this song. Like you, I don't know the rest of the album. But here, no surprises. Nothing truly revolutionary happening. They're pretty much replicating their established sound from previous albums at this point which is a bit disappointing. Thank you, Brian, for your honest reaction of this song.
Great analysis and I agree on the whole.
Not too keen on the band, but the singer Mikael Stanne is one of my favourite personalities in music. He's a devoted fan of great music and I noticed him for several years going to the same gigs as I on my favourite festival - before I was told who he was... I've got the same "relation" with Mike Portnoy - not too keen on to much of the bands he's been playing with - but an awesone personality with great taste and devotion as a music fan 😊
I feel like their character album is there best album.
I see new Deafheaven recommendation popped up at the end of the music video. It's been a while since you checked them out. It'd be cool if you reacted to them again
Yeah, I guess he would like better this new deafheaven sound.. but also would be great to see a reaction of the Audiotree live version of Honeycomb
i suggest inflames moonsheild the pinaccle of melo death metal
I'm going to keep earnestly suggesting 'The Lost Outpost' by In Mourning. Fantastic melodeath staple for me.
Great band, but would have loved to see your reaction to their 90s stuff
Yeah it's definitely death metal. Death metal is actually a fairly diverse sub-genre of metal, in that no matter what form the music takes, it is still defined by its vocal style. This is how we get labels like "extreme technical progressive melodic blackened homogenized jurassic gravometric death metal", for example (no that's not real lol, just making a point). It gets quite confusing sometimes. But really, at the end of the day, it's all just death metal. :)
Black Metal = Metal's punk music. Influenced by Motorhead and Venom, starts "proper" with Bathory, develops into the 2nd Wave Norwegian bands (Emperor, Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone). Typical black metal qualities are higher pitched "shriek" or "croak" vocals, tons of tremolo picking, tends to be very simple harmonically and rhythmically. Usually extremely lo-fi, where a lack of studio polish is desired. Black Metal also tends to be "brighter" in general (in terms of audio tone: less emphasis on bass, more on high mids/treble). Blast beats are incredibly common for more extreme BM.
Death Metal = Basically thrash meets harsh/gutteral vocals. Though not DM themselves, Slayer had a huge influence on the genre. Starts proper with Possessed's Seven Churches in '85, with influential early bands being Death, Obituary, and Morbid Angel. Much more emphasis on bass and low end (early DM bands almost all played tuned down guitars). Early DM was also very focused on "horror" themes (blood, gore, etc.). Early DM could also use lots of tremolo picking too, but wasn't quite as ubiquitous as in BM. DM could be in some cases as simple as BM, but was also capable of being more complex, as with late Death. DM also pretty quickly combined with prog metal in the early 90s, so the thrash roots got obscured somewhat in later iterations. You can still hear some of those roots on the early melodeath albums, which basically took DM and added more elements from classic/traditional metal, especially the melodic aspects with the lead guitars and finding ways to make the typically-rhythmic harsh vocals catchier.
So I think when you say you're hearing "melodic metal" in this you're not far off. Really the only DM here is indeed the harsh vocals, but it just goes to show how easily/quickly these genres evolve and get hybridized with other genres.
I did not know John Snow was into metal.
You know, you could have listened to 2/3 their songs, taking into account that the video length is 25mins. That could have given you better understanding of the band
best genre in music history
I'm digging it so far. It's a fine line between the harshness of metal and the beauty of melodic writing. I just wish I could find some melodeath with some vocals that really worked for me.
@@CriticalReactions maybe In Flames will click. They have very memorable vocal delivery
Iam really curious how you decided tot do Dark Tranquillity
My patrons help me select songs for each theme and then they get voted on. This band/song was second in the poll so it got the Tuesday slot.
react to utopia ost the British one
how about the lyrics meaning or something?
Lost to Apathy, Lethe and Hours Passed in Exile destroy this song.
Typical melo death on the softer side of the spectrum. Not very memorable, though, I would say.