Skydancer

Skydancer is the debut on which DARK TRANQUILLITY layered multi-tiered melody and a fantastical air over the drive of raw death metal, greatly widening the possibilities of early melodic death. Hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden, they shared in the dawn of melodic death metal — later a worldwide current — alongside IN FLAMES and AT THE GATES. At this point Anders Fridén handled vocals (he would later move to IN FLAMES, with Mikael Stanne stepping to the front), while the guitars of Niklas Sundin and company traced coldly interlocking melodies. It is a record full of rough, raw heat, before the style had settled. On “Nightfall By The Shore Of Time,” “Crimson Winds,” “Skywards” and “Through Ebony Archways,” keyboard and guitar melodies cast a pale light between racing riffs, and “Shadow Duet” shows a lyrical passage with clean singing woven in. Rather than presenting a finished template, the album’s greatest appeal is the process itself of several elements colliding while searching for a new language. Laying the foundation for the current later called the Gothenburg sound, it holds an important place in the history of early melodic death as an ambitious, suggestive starting point.