As far as being a fan of problematic artists, that‘s a very personal demarcation. I find death of the author easier applicable to art that stands on its own.
01. Punish My Heaven 02. Silence, And The Firmament Withdrew 03. Edenspring 04. The Dividing Line 05. The Gallery 06. The One Brooding Warning 07. Midway Through Infinity 08. Lethe 09. The Emptiness From Which I Fed 10. Mine Is the Grandeur... 11. ... Of Melancholy Burning 12. Bringer Of Torture [Kreator cover][Special Deluxe Edition bonus] 13. Sacred Reich [Sacred Reich cover][Special Deluxe Edition bonus] 14. 22 Acacia Avenue [Iron Maiden cover][Special Deluxe Edition bonus] 15. Lady In Black [Mercyful Fate cover][Special Deluxe Edition bonus] 16. My Friend Of Misery [Metallica cover][Special Deluxe Edition bonus]
Additional info Label: Osmose productions (Cat.#: OPCD 033)
Special "Deluxe" edition released in 2005 by Century Media Records (US) & Osmose productions (Europe). This version features different booklet layout as well bonus tracks.
Recorded and mixed at Studio Fredman during April and May 1995. Engineered and produced by Fredrik Nordström and Dark Tranquillity.
Cover artwork by Kristian Wåhlin. Layout by Cabin Fever Media.
Band photo by Kenneth Johansson. Proofreading by Rahvin.
This is obviously my favourite album of my favourite band. So you can easily imagine that I only have nice things to say about it. So, why does this album reach perfection? Why is it, in my opinion, the best melodic death metal album ever released? Simply because it is the manifest of a band that perfectly masters its music, and above all that loves what it is doing. You can feel such love for the metal in general all along the eleven tracks of this work. It is actually the first real album of the band after the departure of the previous singer Anders Friden, gone to found their Swedish mates of In Flames. So this is also the first album with Mikael Stanne, former guitarist, on the vocals, after the EP Of Chaos and Eternal Night.
Caution! Cult album ahead. "The Gallery" is to Melodic Death Metal what "Images And Words" is to Progressive Metal, if not more. The essence of Sweden delivered by Dark Tranquillity is simply grandiose. The duo of singers Mikael Stanne-Anders Friden blows everything in its path while emblematic songs keep playing in your shitty CD player. I'll have to visit Gothenburg one day, as a pilgrim of Holy Metalness, I'm serious!
Have you listened to Fiction? Imagine an entire album of songs more like Misery's Crown and The Mundane and the Magic. It's their only album which features Mikael actually singing frequently throughout the album.
I really love his singing voice, and wish he/they would decide to write more songs using it. Especially with how stale their albums have become recently. I feel like them shifting their sound/style in a more Projector-like direction, with more of him singing, would actually benefit the band more.
I have heard Fiction, but am not a huge fan. I will check out Projector though, since I like Mikael's singing voice as well.
TBH The Gallery is fairly unique in their discog, as is Mind's Eye I suppose, though I never liked that one.
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed at first since The Gallery was the first DT album I checked out, but nothing else seemed to sound like it. I love Damage Done though. Everything else I've heard was good, but not great.
I don't drink coffee very often, but when I do it's black or nothing. Which is the opposite of how I like my black metal these days.
If I have it black (i.e. when there's no milk around) I don't have sugar in it which does taste a bit weird.
By the time I finish with this post, I'll start with second cup of back coffee with no sugar.
Not weird I would say. It taste awesome.
You know in Kashmir people always go with coffee adding local kashmiri tulsi and ginger with no sugar after dinner. This is one of my favorite type of coffee ever.
Overrated, yes, but I'd still put it over anything else that came outta the Gothenburg scene, with the sole exception of The Jester Race. Damage Done is my favorite DT album, though.
This blows the Jester Race out the water. I got bored of Jester Race a decade ago but this still gets regular plays, especially alcohol flows.
Agreed, in fact, bar a couple of songs I am not much into Jester Race and Whoracle at all anymore, out of In Flames' old albums, I prefer Lunar Strain, Subterranean and Colony.
From the early Gothenburg scene I do hold The Red In The Sky Is Ours and Burning Darkness above this album, and I am sometimes torn between this and Skydancer, but this is definitely a brilliant, timeless album and one of the best in the genre.
I tend to rate albums more positively, perhaps because when I don't like something I just turn away from it and don't really pay attention to it anymore, so this one deserves a 10, a worthy 10, all around great album, one of the heights of metal, especially melodic death and well, the expression Gothenburg for that matter. No need to talk about it, listening to the music is just enough of an argument!
Powerful album, melodic, fast, Dm, and aggressive, well speedy one, nothing as 1th one, complex, but a bit simple and this time no emotional song to catch even Eva-Marie Larsson had some guest vox. I like it in way it is but nostalgia is strong here
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!
Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Revisited this one. And directly swapped my 9 for a 10.
How this is supposed to be overrated is beyond me.
There is not much that I am missing here.
Highlights... Name it, almost everything. Only track 06 is a bit subpar for me.
Will always be their best album for me (I somehow know), Damage closely following.
Every few years I come back to this one since I know I liked it so much when I was first getting into metal. It really is as great as I remember it. The whole record is solid straight through. I find most melodic death metal boring/repetitive/done already these days barring B'elakor and Mors Principium Est, however, maybe it's just hard to top a classic album of the genre as well written as this.
I prefer the first half of the album. My favorite tracks are definitely "The Dividing Line" and "The Gallery". The others are also OK songs, but I'm not that much of a fan. I rate it between a 7 and a 8.
I prefer the first half of the album. My favorite tracks are definitely "The Dividing Line" and "The Gallery". The others are also OK songs, but I'm not that much of a fan. I rate it between a 7 and a 8.
You have discovered the first half of this masterpiece, great!
Now take a break and come back to it in a couple of month to check out its second half.
I can assure you it is as excellent as the first half.
Now take a break and come back to it in a couple of month to check out its second half.
I can assure you it is as excellent as the first half.
Will do! At the moment, I prefer melodic death metal more like Be'lakor's Stone's Reach than this, but we'll see! I've learned that tastes can change a lot in music!
This album was a grower on me, at first I thought it was ok, but now years later I think it's brilliant, the songs "Emptiness From Which I Fed", "The Gallery", "Lethe", "Punish My Heaven", and "The Dividing Line" are amongst my favourite Dark Tranquillity songs, I also really liked the cover to the Mercyful Fate song "Lady In Black".
I prefer the first half of the album. My favorite tracks are definitely "The Dividing Line" and "The Gallery". The others are also OK songs, but I'm not that much of a fan. I rate it between a 7 and a 8.
Maybe your opinion will change over time, like mine often does, I noticed your opinion changed with Blackwater Park
I prefer the first half of the album. My favorite tracks are definitely "The Dividing Line" and "The Gallery". The others are also OK songs, but I'm not that much of a fan. I rate it between a 7 and a 8.
You have discovered the first half of this masterpiece, great!
Now take a break and come back to it in a couple of month to check out its second half.
I can assure you it is as excellent as the first half.
Thanks for the advice! I now realize that all of the songs here are amazing! This album is a masterpiece!
My favourite Dark Tranquillity album and easily their most complex musically (they simplified their songwriting a lot after this one, especially guitar-wise).
9.2/10 for me - 'Punish My Heaven' and 'Silence, And The Firmament Withdrew' are the standout tracks IMO. 'The Gallery' and 'Lethe' are both also fantastic. 'The Dividing Line' and 'Midway Through Infinity' are slightly weaker than the others, but there are no bad tracks on this album.
This album is harder to get into than their others in my opinion. But "Punish My Heaven", "Edenspring", "The One Brooding Warning" and "Lethe" are absolutely phenomenal tracks. The rest of the tracks are no less than great.