20 years and album number ten, the one thing that you have to say about Dark Tranquillity is that they are consistent. Reliable too and this is the very important thing to those of us who love this sort of music. The Swedes have never let us down, certainly not stylistically this is one group that have never come anywhere close to selling out when so many of their peers have changed their game and seen the bright arena lights shining as they make their music more commercial. Listen to that first album ‘Skydancer’ from way back in 1993 and compare it to Construct two decades later and you will see that this is a fact. It may have taken the band a while to get over to England the first time (headlining that classic show with Enslaved, Bewitched, Swordmaster etc in 1997) but since then they have again been steadfast and reliable returning as often as possible and playing their hearts out with massive big smiles on their faces, enjoying it all as much as we have.
There have been some changes recently and in preparation of this album, which has apparently been constructed (sorry) slightly differently in studio rather than rehearsal room and given more time to breathe and focus on the songs. It has also seen the departure and one of very, very few over all the years of bass player Daniel Antonsson and sees guitarist Martin Henrikkson stepping into the breach. Interestingly we also get cover art by the renowned artist and founding member Niklas Sundin. Apparently he normally wants to just concentrate on the music but everything fell into place here. I have to admit it is the one facet of the album that I am not 100% sold on and it is quite different from what has come before but it may yet grow. One thing that did not need to grow were the ten songs, they instantly delivered the goods!
Odd album title and ‘For Broken Words’ is a little bit too but the riffs that have it firing up and the harsh gruff roars of Mikael Stanne are instantly recognisable and the melody is quick to infect and spread through the veins. It has a very classic feel to it as far as any lover of melodic death metal will no doubt attest. A heavy chugging bombast and mid paced fervour courses through it and has you in no doubt about the fact that this is solid. There is a gentle break allowing a bit of dark tranq… (yeah well) and then a final wallop, perfect! A nice meaty tumult follows and the angrier sounding ‘The Science Of Noise’ cleaves in with some classic Swedish rifferama and some solid pounding sections from Anders Jivarp. This is a nice roughshod groover full of hooks and substance. Just when you are thinking the 4-5 minute songs are going to see the band on auto pilot a moody synth line sees the pace slow on ‘Uniformity and those Stanne rasps sound perfect even over some classical piano sounding parts but this is not all about Uniformity! Yes those clean vocals are back and if I am not mistaken possibly for the first time since ‘Projector.’ Do not say yuck and shudder they are excellent and we do get them again on a couple of other numbers. Stanne can croon with the best of them and his emotive range is more than welcome back in my book. If you don’t like them as the song says it is something you are going to have to “come to terms” with.
As per usual it is another one of those albums where it is really difficult, nigh impossible to pick a favourite number as there is nothing in the way of fat about it. I do like The Silence In Between’ it is somewhat familiar as Stanne sings about walls coming down, now when has he done that before? Then there is the frenzied ‘Apathetic’ which is the complete opposite of what is suggested and fires out solos and drumming pounds along with a gloomy retrospective feeling chorus melody. Then the clean vocals swoon back in on “What Only You Know’ and every song battles to be a favourite, the only way to pick is plump on the one that you are currently listening to. Possibly the most classic sounding tune is ‘Endtime Hearts’ it is the one that I would go for that cover-mount CD choice as it is highly charged with some superb classic sounding melody lines that could only belong to the one band and it does start off with bullets flying to really get the point across.
Construct is one of those albums that is doing its damn best to have me mention each and every song on it as I write the review, for me that means that all of them have something individual to say about them and all are good. Damn it not playing that game here though, what else do you need to know apart from the fact that if like me you have everything the band have released you are not going to want to miss this or them when they bring these numbers on tour as they are hopefully going to do. Nicely constructed!
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
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