Haven

Haven is a turning-point album on which DARK TRANQUILLITY layered cold synthesizers over hard guitars, greatly adding electronic shadow to melodic death. The layers of keyboard and electronics brought by Martin Brändström lend an urban loneliness to Mikael Stanne’s voice, and the songs, though complex, always keep the outline of the melody clear. Widening its spatial expression while retaining heaviness, the direction that would carry into later years appears distinctly here. On “The Wonders at Your Feet,” “Indifferent Suns,” “Feast of Burden” and “The Same,” drive and melodic beauty melt into electronic texture, while the instrumental title track “Haven” gives the album quiet breathing room. On “Not Built to Last,” “Fabric,” “Rundown” and “Emptier Still” too, hard riffs and an electronic floating quality coexist in a distinctive balance. Sublimating the experiments of Projector into a more consistent band sound, it is a refined, beautiful record on which the essence of DARK TRANQUILLITY rises three-dimensionally rather than settling into a single mold.