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Rating:
Projector is the album of musical turning point (and discographic) for Dark Tranquillity. The label change from Osmose records to Century Media Records is significant for the production of the album; the sounds are indeed much cleaner and more defined than previous albums, particularly "The Mind's I".
The album opens with Freecard, a short piano intro and all the band members come into play. Mikael Stanne on vocals, as usual, is imposing without being brutal, in the author's opinion the most expressive of Death singers. The song continues without giving a second of pause to the ears, not even the breaks distract us: guitar melodies intertwine perfectly with the phenomenal rhythmic section held up by the immense Anders Jivarp behind the drums and bassist Martin Henriksson. A great song, often played live as well.
Next comes one of the Swedish band's greatest hits, namely There In. An extremely effected wall of guitars introduces us to a mid-tempo song where the star of the show, needless to say, is Mikael Stanne, supported by the guitar duo Niklas Sundin-Michael Niklasson. The grand chorus is sung cleanly, making it vibrant, warm, and the aforementioned guitars give their best to create a relaxed atmosphere, although never truly calm. One of the best tracks on the album. Then there is UnDo Control: a guitar plucking a few chords and female vocals dominating the scene, then unleashing when Mikael steps in with one of the album's most catchy choruses, an essential piece in live performances and the history of Dark Tranquillity, who nonetheless are no strangers to female vocals (just think of the stunning Insanity's Crescendo, from the previous "The Mind's I"), the piece has a break that slows the tempo before picking it up again, genius song.
Auctioned is a track, in my opinion, very experimental and perfectly accomplished: a piano intro accompanied by guitar and drums, sung mainly in clean and a keyboard ticking everything off like a metronome in the background, the beautiful bass solo around the minute 3:50 that launches Sundin's solo for an almost moving finale. The use of piano, harshly criticized by many, is fundamental in this song. Another great song. To a bitter halt begins very calmly: guitars, bass, and drums at rather bland tempos. Then the guitar and drums launch, turning the song into another Dark Tranquillity piece, embellished by Anders Jivarp's performance, who, even without pyrotechnics, writes a stunning track even to play without the other instruments. The chorus is also sung cleanly here and after the break at 3:50, it "gets vicious" only to return to the previous dark "tranquillity."
The Sun Fired Blanks is the most a-la-The Gallery track of the album. Violent guitars start the song, then move on to a bridge where you hear all of Jivarp's single bass drum (in live performances always with a single pedal with a double pedal), the initial theme returns after the chorus, closing upon itself at the end of the song, not without a stunning break where the guitars perfectly do their job. As usual, the brief bass solo towards the end of the song is beautiful. Stunning track.
Nether Novas continues the experimental part of the album, which began earlier with Auctioned. Clean vocals preceded by the usual intro of bass, guitar, and drums, it might seem like a ballad, but beware: the growl of Mikael (wonderful as he has accustomed us to) and distorted guitars begin again, there's also a fantastic break where, once again, Anders pulls out all his expressiveness and Mikael is definitively named "great singer even in clean." The song chases itself with constant changes clean-growl, clean-distorted guitars, mid tempos-double bass drum.
Day To End is the most atypical song of the album, played only on keyboards and Mikael's (clean) voice at the beginning, where bass and drums also join in later. Besides being atypical for DT, it is also the most depressing song, with a chilling text and a voice you would never expect from a Death singer like Stanne. Fundamental. Next: Dobermann! Spectacular initial riff from the 12-string duo, where Mikael bursts in bringing energy and rage, with a growl sometimes on the edge of a scream. The fantastic chorus follows the break: guitar arpeggio, bass, drums, and highly effected clean vocals, only to explode again with the usual energy, in this track, I highlight especially the beauty of the guitarists' sounds in the riff (and the cymbal-bass drum stoppings... which are the author's passion).
Here we are at the end, with the track I consider the best of the album. Highly distorted guitars, endless harmonics, wicked and mythical vocals, moving to a clean vocals part full of sadness that then opens a window on the greatest guitar wall of the group: launch and go, notes in succession at the 2:20-minute mark; phenomenal moments with double pedal below and clean vocals making everything extremely dramatic, great solo towards the end and taking on a sustained tempo in the last seconds of the song. Live, it is an indescribable track, pure emotions, nothing more to say.
This "Projector" was the first Death album I ever heard and it truly changed my life, on par with The Gallery, the best of the band. Rating tending to infinity, priceless.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 FreeCard (04:31)
Set against these hardest hours
Anger paled, for in this fear
the theft of privacy
We all see it break sometimes
see it tear us apart
that which left behind
screams out loud this night
So much is asked in silence
Except not and you'll find
Thousand miles
from the nearest truth
Rotating, Entangled
- I continue not to heal
Another No-Night
waits its turn
So I call upon
My freecard
To postpone
If time was one with many faces
Which one would call to me?
Where all our paths in one now end
That with the power to gather the mislead
now will lead them all astray
So push it ever further
To unsuspecting dark
Build that second layer
For the hours to take fast
A rest from the giving
Like a heart between beats
Greater than the need
for community
The need for the right solitude
Come to know
that outrage is inevitable
Though many try,
an escape is unsuccessful
In the midst of a nerve-night
The victim of soulkill
True self is mere toture
Death rides these nerves
Another No-Night
waits its turn
So I call upon
My freecard
To postpone
02 ThereIn (05:55)
Gentle storm, Thundering Silence
Inferior force, Uncontrolled calm
Vital unlife, Logic/Chaos/Logic
The tone of which his birth ascend
The beat that of a heart descend
Repeating in the infinite
An insight made it clear
Order stormed the surface
Where chaos set the norm
Had there always been balance?
...Surely not;
Therein lies the beauty
It was solid
Yet everchanging
It was different
Yet the same
So I starve myself for Energy
The song around his soul will bend
The notes that in this hole will melt
Crawl out of science
A dreamland if you dear
Disorder clawed the boundaries
We're ordered to stand clear
Was it always different
...Never the same?
Therein lies the beauty
It was solid
Yet everchanging
It was different
Yet the same
So I starve myself for Energy
As there was no witnesses
There was nothing to be told
As nothing could be grasped
The story could unfold
Superimposed on the elements of anger
| fear | anxiety | hate | despair | remorse
So break from all that fear hold fast
Exposed, now turn to all you lack
Let echoes be the answers
Return from all the screams
Wordless now the last attack
So silent it hurts to listen
Was it always solid
...to never change?
therein lies the beauty
It was solid...
03 UnDo Control (05:10)
There were words of lust
in these arms of the stranger
And there in silence though were words of no milder
So in thinking of that madness
that ravage the thoughts
in the lonliest of hours
I resist without control
The demand i get from excellence
the void I felt from answering
Not only an addition
it generated need
In these endless nights of freezing
my weight on the other side
I resist without control
Feel the thorns of UnControl
Claws the set in sleeps' December
let loose on the verge
Talked to me as strangers once did
The tone was set for winter
Sweet UnControl
Beyond proportion
Into the night
So strike me deeper
I resist without control
Feel the thorns of UnControl
The death that craved no life
now ended
in return
Drifting uncontrollably
Within the night
Sweet UnControl
Beyond proportion
Into the night
So strike me deeper
04 Auctioned (06:06)
Outsmart the fever.
And take us farther from.
The killing life in capsules,
A life that can't belong.
If I wake up dead to world,
With the helm at my command.
The reaching out of this..
Oh, faced tomorrow.
In the eleventh hour, beckoned closer.
Now as nightfall sends it's grace.
Oh, cue to enter, the insatiable ideal.
Slam it shut.
But the portal pounding lingers.
What it is. Is time undone?
I cannot falter in the security of labor.
Was I supposed to believe?
Where did I sign?
Oh did I miss,
Oh, the Auction?
Oh where my life..
Where did I sign?
Did I miss... The Auction?
Went the half mile,
Wondered when the resolution would come.
Life became to solid,
Dilluted by the essence of denial.
Caught in fire's eye.
Oh the self and the filter that is I.
My lip was venom.
Words formed in my mouth,
And hid beneath thr tongue.
Never to be.. Never to be seen..
Where did I sign?
Oh did I miss,
Oh the Auction.
Oh where my life..
Where did I sign?
Did I miss, the Auction?
Was I supposed to believe?
Where did I sign?
Oh did I miss,
Oh, the Auction?
Oh where my life,
Where did I sign?
Did I miss, the Auction?
Oh where my life!
Where did I sign?
Oh did I miss, the Auction?
Where my life..
Where did I sign..
Did I miss..
The Auction, where my life went under the club..
05 To a Bitter Halt (04:48)
Faintly arisen | Tenderly torn
Dream like decision, unconciously born
Firm in conviction yet tempt me they can
deny me of trust and the demon i hide
A drive to be less then the fortunat
a dream in the casket of eden
Crave thet wich you do not desire
cling tightly to your deepest fear
I rose gratest monument
again and again
I bear gratest treasure
of time and word
Treson split on the loneliest of graves
Desperation dealt the losing hand again
Wherein lie the purpose of the day?
Is there return in sadness?
Does your ceiling differ much from mine
where we see each other
Here in this light
Is that pillow more then a frame
that holds the chaos fast?
Now his hand a fist
gain control
Silence fell and eyes now widened
filling up, the strange collapsing
capable of the ending, froze in the tracks
brought to a bitter halt
On the floor it seems the steps are showing
left a print just like it did in me
What has been and will be
never care cause i was in between
As i said one with one foot in loneliness
You hide here in me
06 The Sun Fired Blanks (04:17)
upon our evening when the sun fired blanks
there rode the sickness out of our sight
carried torches burned out long before it's time
among these ruins where our love to be found
ambition falters when no better is to be known
cling to the unfounded pride
death to our belonging
and our ministy of two
set the higher standard
and to a greater fall descend
slaves to one another
and to others be it not
soothing be temptation
force the conscience to a halt
caused a high vibration
a tender light to be part of you
the two-way escape
07 Nether Novas (06:14)
What late forgotten nights to emptiness has given
And now november morning will be taken asunder
The shovel staind with dirt in the hours of belonging
dug in to the undiscovered of a life, a past, a plague
Falling back into the arms - no never
Admiting to a life alone - no
Claiming there are sparks inside
Outside looking back - no -
So the lie never stopped
Cling to the wave it cried and onward to the night
Expecting not and nothing in the presence of a lie
The deeper that it dug the more now had to go
Surrender was a fact and the room was decorated
No - the lie never stopped
What late forgotten nights to emtptiness has given
The strangers may they come in ignorance's disguise
So into the dark walking to leave the last of times
Knee-deep in desperation to fill the gap behind
Boldly thread the night forever
November thought are right - oh never
Taken from the fall - no
Frightened by the key but the trail behind the house
Felt compelling and new - the lie never stopped
Found at loss for words aren't enough
Someone told, a vacancy was open
Someone laughed, the silence here was broken
Dug up to make room
The room wich you furnaced and graced
There is no vacancy
The least can fill the fountain
The most will flood the mold
09 Dobermann (04:38)
Where were the eyes that followed
How could they've found?
These misery's merchants
Struck the message deep
"We have come to stay"
Dogs fled there in the dark of his path
Feared him as once they all did
Like a ghost, in daylight
On an overcrowded street
He wishes to be something he is not
Like a shadow, at midnight
That originate in air
He wishes for release
Deep in the back it had caught him
The anchor they threw at his life
Oh these misery's merchants
Dragged through life as a burden
Rushed off to his cage of glass
To open the single window
A means of escape, out in the open
There are still holes in these walls
Puking information into the unwanting
Probing the last hope of defense
So he plugged up the holes
And shut the outside window
In doing that, madness paid a visit
...And then suddenly in mid-thought
Escape was a factor and as from inside
Pushing out were words
Through fingers came uncovering
Revealing the truth of him there in the dark...
Skin began to crawl as they neared him
Is all pleasure release?
Oh these misery's merchants
Saw the message clear
"It is time to pay"
Like a ghost in daylight
On an overcrowded street
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Other reviews
By Cold Fuckin Winter
Stanne reveals himself as a sublime singer, alternating with extreme precision his growl with melodic clean vocal lines that give you chills.
Projector is a strange album; it seems difficult but is actually extremely simple, you just need to let yourself be carried away by these seductive and most sad rhythms.
