Review by Sonny for Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery (1995)

I have been listening to this over the last couple of days in conjunction with At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul. Both bands being instrumental in the development of what became known as "The Gothenburg Sound", the two albums were released a mere fortnight apart. I must admit that, of the two, I prefer this as there is just a bit more to interest me than with Slaughter of the Soul. A big plus for me is Mikael Stanne's vocals which I much prefer over Tomas Lindberg's. His singing style is still very aggressive, but sounds to me like it has more of a black metal flavour than a hardcore one. The riffs may be less memorable than At the Gates' best, but the guitars don't sound quite as swamped in distortion and as such pack a greater punch to my way of thinking.

The most striking thing about The Gallery, though, is the production which is a revelation. Each of the instruments can be heard distinctly and clearly, the biggest benefactor of this being bassist Martin Henriksson whose bass lines are perfectly audible and as a consequence it is easy to hear what a terrific job he does weaving his lines in with Anders Jivarp's pummelling drum patterns. It also allows us to easily distinguish between the lead work of the two guitarists and generally gives the whole album a crisper sound than is often the case with Swedish death metal. I also feel that The Gallery scores over Slaughter... in that it has more variety, with the inclusion of slower sections, acoustic parts and even female vocals to provide some contrast to the pulverising riffs. The Gallery also sees Dark Tranquility dabble a bit more with technicality than AtG, although I don't wish to overegg it, this certainly isn't tech-death, but the rhythms and leads sound more complex and technically specific than those on Slaughter of the Souls.

I don't wish to set this review up as a competition between the two albums, it has just come out like that as a consequence of my listening to them that way, comparisons between two pioneering albums of the same genre, released days apart becoming inevitable. Anyway, I'm giving it to The Gallery on a TKO. This is an album I am likely to return to again in the future for sure.