Post by thesoundmonitor on Jun 26, 2004 2:03:00 GMT -5
DARK TRANQUILLITY
Exposures-In Retrospect And Denial
(Century Media)
Century Media seem to be pumping out re-releases, best of’s and live albums like they’re going out of fashion lately, the latest being the new Dark Tranquillity, Exposures: In Retrospect and Denial - a double CDrelease with disc-1 being a collection of rarities and 2 consisting of a live recording lifted from their live DVD Live Damage’.
Disc-1 compiles unreleased and rare tracks and works backwards in chronological order starting off with two songs from 2002’s Damage Done sessions. Both are fairly good songs and fans of the bands more keyboard-oriented recent years will no doubt enjoy them. ‘Poison the Well’ was only available on the Japanese release of the album whilst the other ‘Static’ was previously unavailable. Tracks 3-5 are taken from the Haven release of 2000, of which ‘In Sight’ features completely clean vocals. Considering this was something the band had done prior to this album why oh why are these vocals so bad? Words cannot explain it so I won’t even try. The other two tracks are mid-paced tracks that are drenched in the keyboards the band took to using.
Up next are is the Projector era which marked the first clean vocals for the band, with ‘No One’ employing clean and backing vocals. The gem of this unreleased period however is ‘Exposure’, a total Gothenburg trash feast which would have made a good bonus to the digi-pack edition of the album.
Its not ‘til we get back to 1992’s A Moonclad Reflection EP that we hear the true black metal roots of the band. This is then followed by the bands’ very first demo Trail of Life Decayed.
As mentioned above disc-2 is a live release taken from their performance in Poland and released on the 2003 Damage Done DVD. After track 2 vocalist Mikael Stanne says “we are Dark Tranquillity and we’re from Gothenburg Sweden” and you know what? He’s right. They’re one of the very first bands that are part of the Gothenburg movement. It’s probably just me but that part really appeals. There are 19 tracks on this live release and little much else but music and a few song introductions. I haven’t heard the DVD and whilst this is a fantastic collection of live material, for me it lacks that live feel. Because 19 songs are squeezed onto one CD there is very little between the songs, giving it the feel of a compilation rather than a live set. Finally, the set contains almost no crowd except from the odd bits of cheering between songs. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve been spoilt by fantastic live releases by bands like Slayer and Iron Maiden, but when a vocalist screams “HOW ARE YOU Krakow?!”, I expect to hear something in return. It just sounds far too sterile and studio produced for a live album.
All in all these discs serve as both a chance for fans to acquire more DT songs but also as a good introduction to the bands ever changing sound over the years (although no songs from Skydancer appear - I guess Century Media don’t have the rights to that release). A 2-disc package containing all lyrics, three page band history and tonnes of photos at this price, you can’t go wrong.
By Paul Irwin
Exposures-In Retrospect And Denial
(Century Media)
Century Media seem to be pumping out re-releases, best of’s and live albums like they’re going out of fashion lately, the latest being the new Dark Tranquillity, Exposures: In Retrospect and Denial - a double CDrelease with disc-1 being a collection of rarities and 2 consisting of a live recording lifted from their live DVD Live Damage’.
Disc-1 compiles unreleased and rare tracks and works backwards in chronological order starting off with two songs from 2002’s Damage Done sessions. Both are fairly good songs and fans of the bands more keyboard-oriented recent years will no doubt enjoy them. ‘Poison the Well’ was only available on the Japanese release of the album whilst the other ‘Static’ was previously unavailable. Tracks 3-5 are taken from the Haven release of 2000, of which ‘In Sight’ features completely clean vocals. Considering this was something the band had done prior to this album why oh why are these vocals so bad? Words cannot explain it so I won’t even try. The other two tracks are mid-paced tracks that are drenched in the keyboards the band took to using.
Up next are is the Projector era which marked the first clean vocals for the band, with ‘No One’ employing clean and backing vocals. The gem of this unreleased period however is ‘Exposure’, a total Gothenburg trash feast which would have made a good bonus to the digi-pack edition of the album.
Its not ‘til we get back to 1992’s A Moonclad Reflection EP that we hear the true black metal roots of the band. This is then followed by the bands’ very first demo Trail of Life Decayed.
As mentioned above disc-2 is a live release taken from their performance in Poland and released on the 2003 Damage Done DVD. After track 2 vocalist Mikael Stanne says “we are Dark Tranquillity and we’re from Gothenburg Sweden” and you know what? He’s right. They’re one of the very first bands that are part of the Gothenburg movement. It’s probably just me but that part really appeals. There are 19 tracks on this live release and little much else but music and a few song introductions. I haven’t heard the DVD and whilst this is a fantastic collection of live material, for me it lacks that live feel. Because 19 songs are squeezed onto one CD there is very little between the songs, giving it the feel of a compilation rather than a live set. Finally, the set contains almost no crowd except from the odd bits of cheering between songs. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’ve been spoilt by fantastic live releases by bands like Slayer and Iron Maiden, but when a vocalist screams “HOW ARE YOU Krakow?!”, I expect to hear something in return. It just sounds far too sterile and studio produced for a live album.
All in all these discs serve as both a chance for fans to acquire more DT songs but also as a good introduction to the bands ever changing sound over the years (although no songs from Skydancer appear - I guess Century Media don’t have the rights to that release). A 2-disc package containing all lyrics, three page band history and tonnes of photos at this price, you can’t go wrong.
By Paul Irwin