"If there were words for this
Would I sing or should I scream?"
Mikael Stanne chose the latter option when Dark Tranquillity recorded their fifth album Haven 15 years ago. The previous album Projector (1999) had been an experimental and divisive record that incorporated a huge dose of clean vocals and an increased amount of keyboards into their sound. Haven was originally meant to continue in that direction, but the band decided to speed things up and cut down on the clean singing. However, the addition of full-time keyboardist Martin Brändström meant that this was not going to be a back-to-roots record by any means.
According to setlist.fm stats, "The Wonders at Your Feet" has been played live more often than any other song in the Dark Tranquillity catalog. This isn't surprising, as it's a compact, punchy 3-minute track with a great tapping solo by Niklas Sundin and infectious keyboard melodies - in fact, newcomer Brändström recycled the main melody of the song from a tune he had written for an old pop project of his. His playing is a big part of atmospheric songs like "The Same" and "Ego Drama", but he's also prominent on up-tempo tracks, such as "Not Built to Last" and "Rundown".
The bass played by the other newbie Michael Nicklasson is the leading instrument on the mid-tempo "Indifferent Suns". The addition of Nicklasson allowed founding member Martin Henriksson to switch to guitar. Henriksson wrote the majority of the material on the album, while Niklas Sundin didn't make any musical contributions.
Mikael Stanne does more of growling than his classic high-pitched screaming on Haven. He was going through a rough period vocally, but his performance is stronger than on Projector or the follow-up Damage Done (2002). However, he also makes use of some comical mannerisms, like the James Hetfield-like "alright-ah!" at the start of the album or the random "ugh!" shouts, especially in "Fabric". Call me immature if you want, but I can't help being amused by his "SUCK IT IN!" screams in the chorus of that song, or the line "we don't need no host", which I keep mishearing as "hoes".
On a serious note, I wish Stanne hadn't shied away from employing his clean voice more, because the only track to feature it, "Emptier Still", is my favorite on the whole album and I like its gloomy yet experimental vibe. One of the bonus tracks, "In Sight", is a ballad in vein of "Auctioned" and shows what a great singer he is. The more mellow sections on the album could've benefited from real singing instead of the half-growl-half-speech style he uses on them.
The songs on Haven are relatively short and straightforward, the exception being the epic closer "At Loss for Words", which ends with an instrumental outro and guitar feedback. It would pave the way for later Dark Tranquillity album closers like "Ex Nihilo" and "Iridium". The album is also more subdued and atmospheric than most of the band's releases, though not as mellow as Projector. Haven is very accessible and its atmosphere is a big part of its charm, but at the same time it feels like the song structures could've been more adventurous and the album would've benefited from having a little more edge. To use a Rush comparison, I'd say this is DT's Signals (1982): an album on which the opening track has overshadowed the rest of the material in terms of live play and the band hadn't found the right balance between keyboards and guitars yet, which makes the music a little sterile at times. However, the strong songwriting makes Haven a brilliant album and one of my favorites from Dark Tranquillity, even though it may not have stood the test of time as well as, say, Fiction (2007).
Rating: 4/5
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