Fresh metal
Swedish band Dark Tranquillity takes a new approach on each album
Dark Tranquillity takes a new approach on every record, every time, which might be the key to the band’s success after 27 years together.
The Swedish melodic death metal band is promoting its latest album, “Atoma,” on its current tour, and the new music has been well-received.
“We’ve been really kind of focused on a lot of new material,” frontman Mikael Stanne said. “We play, I think, some six songs off the new album. It’s a little bit scary, but it’s proven to be very much appreciated. That’s the best review we can get for a new album. When you can get away playing many new songs then that’s awesome.”
Putting together a set list for the tour was a tedious task.
“This is one of the longest shows that we’ve done, so we try to really put together a cool and interesting set list, but it’s always a pain in the ass to do that,” Stanne said. “It’s really difficult, but I think we’ve put together something that is amazing, and I think it feels like it’s sounding better than we’ve ever had. Our show is better than ever, and I couldn’t be happier.”
The title track, “Atoma,” has been Stanne’s favorite to perform live on this tour.
“It goes over really well, and it’s fun to sing,” he said. “It’s a perfect song in a live environment. Sometimes you don’t really know which songs will work and which won’t, but that song was kind of like, this is probably going to work pretty damn well on stage, and it really has.”
What began as a teenage pastime developed into a successful career for Dark Tranquillity.
“I remember laughing at bands who were in their 30s and (thinking) you still play metal after you’re 30 and here we are in our 40s and doing great,” Stanne said. “We started this band when we were 14-15 years old, and it was just something to kind of kill time and do something that was a fun thing to do, and here we are 27 years later.”
Dark Tranquillity seeks to raise the bar with each of its albums.
“We always try to change as much as possible within our kind of constraints or genre or whatever because it’s always easy to throw together a couple of riffs and melodies and call it an album,” Stanne said. “We could do that in a heartbeat. I guess we always set super-high goals for ourselves. Our expectations on ourselves and each other is super-high. We also always try to recapture that creative feeling we had as kids when we started the band, because that then was really exciting.”
A new approach is always a part of writing new music for Dark Tranquillity.
“You always try to find that creative feeling that, whoa, we should be doing something totally new now,” Stanne said. “It’s something that we haven’t done before. This is exciting. We always try to move as far away from ourselves when we start writing. … We always try to have a new approach with each album, a different mindset or different basic idea of what the song should be.”