and the first melodeath band i heard of
fav track: FreeCard, i love the intro with the piano
fav albums: character, damage done, projector
taken from wiki:
Dark Tranquillity is a melodic death metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden. They are one of the longest-standing bands from the Gothenburg metal scene and one of the pioneers of the melodic death metal genre, along with In Flames and At the Gates.
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Dark Tranquillity was formed in 1989, under the name Septic Broiler as a thrash metal band. Since its formation the band has had a fairly stable line-up. In 1990, the band recorded a demo cassette tape entitled Enfeebled Earth before they would change their name to Dark Tranquillity and their style. It was followed by two more demos: Trail of Life Decayed (1991) and A Moonclad Reflection (1992) (both were later remastered and re-released in 2004). In 1993, Anders Fridén, Dark Tranquillity's original lead vocalist, left the band and later joined In Flames. Mikael Stanne, who formerly played rhythm guitar and provided backing vocals, then became the lead vocalist, and Fredrik Johansson was recruited to take over rhythm guitar duties.
Before the release of the band's 1999 album, Projector (later nominated for a Swedish Grammy Award), Fredrik Johansson was asked to leave Dark Tranquillity due to his lack of devotion to the band. Martin Henriksson then switched from playing bass to guitar to replace Johansson, and the band added Michael Nicklasson on bass and Martin Brändström on keyboards and electronics. At this point the band also signed to Century Media Records. Since then, the band has remained stable in its line-up and its musical style; blending layers of rapid guitar lines with harmony-rich electronic keyboard washes and extremely precise rhythms underneath Stanne's abstract growled lyrics. Much more recently they have added a great amount of Progressive metal elements to their music.
From 1995 to 2002, all of Dark Tranquillity's recordings were produced by Fredrik Nordström, who is known as one of the leading melodic death metal producers. After 2002 every recording the band released was self-produced until Fiction, which was co-produced with another well known melodic death metal producer, Tue Madsen.
Dark Tranquillity has now finished recording their newest album, Fiction, which they co-produced with Tue Madsen. The album was released in April 2007. After its completion, they toured with The Haunted, Into Eternity, and Scar Symmetry for the North America Metal For The Masses tour.[3] They returned to the U.S. during the Spring of 2008 with Arch Enemy. They also toured the UK in early 2008 along with Omnium Gatherum
official site
