People who want an entire album of Stanne's clean vocals are absolutely crazy.

I would, but just not on a dt album. They'd be great with a gothic metal album of some kind.

Some of Brändström's work on this album is so good that it makes me want to hear a solo album from him. It's also where Mikael Stanne's cleans would have a natural place, as a session vocalist.

A lot of Dark Tranquillity's material is gothic metal, at least in part.

Care to explain this one in more than a sentence?!

I think not, sir. Stanne's cleans have only gotten better methinks, and, like others have already mentioned, maybe a gothic metal album would be fitting for his vocal style.

Projector is the most obvious example, but ever since that album, they have made use of gothic metal riffs in almost equal measure to their more typical melodeath riffs in almost every other outing. It's hard to really explain, but refer to Haven, We Are the Void, and Construct. It's all there.

The way he sings his cleans is excellent, it's the way he writes his lines that makes it possible for them to be overused. Bar the lyrics, the chorus melodies from Freecard or Uniformity could easily be found on any given modern R&B album. I still love them, but in moderation. Projector was probably the upper limit. A whole album of cleans, I don't think so.

Projector goes without saying, of course. But you said that "a lot of their material is gothic", and that seems debatable to say the least. I get where you're going with Haven for instance, although I have to disagree with you there. Granted I haven't heard the album in a very long time, but still, gothic? If you said that they have some influences would be one thing, but to state out loud that a big part of the band's output is gothic...

Huh why? He's an amazing vocalist? Also lol @DT being gothic, this word is thrown around too much in metal these days.

I really hope they do an "entire" album with clean vocals again.

I stopped listening to DT for a while after I got into them 5 or so years ago when Character was released, my first album from them (After seeing them labeled "King's of Swedish Melodic Death Metal" in Metal Maniacs magazine; can't go wrong right?). Bought Skydancer and Damage Done as well, liking both.

Now just recently with the release of the new album, I decided to go ahead an listen to the rest of the albums. Projector blew me away, that album for me is a masterpiece. Stanne has an amazing voice and he needs to use it more often. Too bad all the fans get butthurt when he uses clean vocals because it's not "br00tal" to use clean vocals, which is quite sad.

DT could be doing so much more with Stanne expanding on his vocals because now he just resorts to that raspy black metal voice he's always used except without power in them; Projector-Character, his voice has more power and depth too it. Seriously though, the new album he should have used his singing voice more because it was playing a little safe with having it only on 3 songs.

I never said that it was gothic and not still melodeath. Obviously, Construct is still a melodeath record, but as the album goes along, you hear tracks like "The Silence in Between", "What Only You Know" (kind of), "State of Trust", and "Weight of the End", whose general structures are not unlike that of, say, modern Lacrimas Profundere songs, and you still hear obvious gothic Projector vestiges. It's less keyboard-driven and not fueled by Stanne's cleans as much, but those are definitely gothic metal riffs. But it's kept in (progressive) melodeath territory by songs like "For Broken Words", "The Science of Noise", and "Apathetic" (this one actually sounds rather thrashy to me, but I've never been a thrash junkie at all, so maybe I'm mistaken). In short, it is a multi-genre album, incorporating equal parts melodeath and gothic metal with a noticeable overlay of the progressiveness that their previous two albums had in spades. I'll admit, though, that the gothic influence was far less apparent after Haven and Damage Done, so it might have been misleading to say that "a lot of" or "most of" their material is gothic. The latter basically sounds like the bridge between Haven and Character, where many of the songs therein feature a melodeath intro, followed by a gothic chorus or vice-versa. Character basically dropped it entirely, probably serving as the first "pure" melodeath record they had created since The Mind's I, with one song, "The Endless Feed", hinting at the nigh-undefinable masterpiece that was Fiction (where We Are the Void was similar, but emphasised the keyboards tenfold and added some atmospheric grandiosity comparable to a symphonic black metal act). Nevertheless, the gothic elements have been pervasive enough that it could be said that they have, historically and as of right now, been a "large" or "pertinent" piece of the whole that enabled them to develop what everyone now recognises as, inescapably, the sound of Dark Tranquillity.

You know, that was a well put reasoning. But with that being said, and without trying to sound like an ass, I have to say that you have a strange definition of "gothic". I won't even go into a big a length about the "progressiveness" you mention in their sound (since there isn't none ffs!), but I can definitely tell you that I still don't hear gothic influences on anything other than Projector. And without trying to sound megalomaniac I will say that I've heard all their albums several times more than what the doctor ordered, so I'm not coming out of the blue with my opinion.

I get it that people have different perspectives of the same given subject, but let me just tell you that you're clearly over thinking it. Being influenced by X is different than being X.

I'm not overthinking it. I hear it naturally whenever I listen to those albums. Aesthetically, no, they're not gothic, but musically?

I say they're progressive because no other melodeath act sounds like them. There's something about the way they execute that sets them far apart, even if the pieces that make up the whole aren't really all that different. They sound like they've completely transcended the difference between "classic" melodeath and "modern" melodeath, but without having to become akin to bands like Ne Obliviscaris, In Vain, or Be'lakor. But I'm not necessarily making an argument of that because I've never quite been able to describe it adequately.

Look, I don't care if you don't agree with me; it's fine if you don't. Most people don't see DT as a gothic act beyond Projector. That doesn't mean I'm deluding myself though. It's just what I hear.

Yeah, as I said it's all about different perspectives, or perception, of the same subject. It's all cool here.

I'm not a fan of this album, it's the type of melodeath that I hate; watered down and over-saturated with melody, often due to the overbearing keyboard. DT is comprised of great musicians, more so than the average melodeath band I'd wager, but this album is lacking. I like "The Science of Noise" and "Apathetic," that's about it.

Despite all people who don't like the album, I on my first listen think I really like it, maybe becouse I am quite a fan of more atmospheric music, but it kind of clicks with me. I can definitely see why some people say it is boring tho.

Same here. I have been spinning this a lot, it's what I was hoping it would be - laid back, melodic (of course) and yeah, more atmospheric. Apathetic would be my least favorite, if I had to choose. I skipped WatV, may go back and check it out now.

I have very mixed feelings on this album. One the one hand I find the slower more mellow tracks quite appealing and to be a bit of a throw back to a much earlier and better time in the bands discography. On the other hand I find myself being kind of bored with the more deathy tracks, they just sound like everything else the band has done lately, excluding parts of We Are the Void. All in all I'm a bit let down by Construct as it was supposed to be their most progressive and diversely influenced record to date or some crap like that. Either way it's just about what I was expecting and far from what I was hoping for. Damnit Mikael just do a freaking side project and give us all what we want already

Everything DT has released since Mind's I has been complete garbage.

Care to elaborate? Damage Done is a pretty good album, though Fiction is when DT started making the type of melodeath that is unappealing to me, i.e. the over-saturated keyboards, ballads with clean vocals, and just lazy, catchy melodies.