Projector

About

Projector is the fourth full-length studio album by the melodic death metal band Dark Tranquillity. It is the last Dark Tranquillity release with Fredrik Johansson. It marked a departure for the band renowned as one of the founders of the Gothenburg Sound. Eschewing much of their trademark dual-guitar passages and death growling, Dark Tranquillity's Projector album featured some piano and clean guitar parts akin to that of gothic metal. The album was also the first to include vocalist Mikael Stanne on clean vocals; Stanne delivered some of the lyrics in an operatic baritone, far removed from his typical metal growls. Because of its massive deviation from the band's previous efforts, Projector was met with mixed opinions by longtime fans, but it also attracted a fair amount of new listeners. The clean vocal style was almost entirely discarded after this album, although the keyboards and pianos would become an integral part of the band's later sound. Stanne has brought his clean vocals back into some of Dark Tranquillity songs, though, as heard on Dark Tranquillity's 2007 album Fiction, 2010 album We Are the Void, and 2013 album Construct. The album credits list that Martin Brändström and Michael Nicklasson were present (as keyboardist and bassist respectively) on the album. However they only joined in time for the album's release and the actual recording was done by their old line-up. The album included a lot of piano and electronics and they hired Brändström to perform this live, whereas Nicklasson joined after the firing of ex-guitarist Fredrik Johansson and Martin Henriksson's switch from bass to guitar. The limited edition digipak includes the bonus track "Exposure". However, there were problems with the pressings because not all the digipaks include "Exposure" and there are some traditional releases that include the track. The Japanese version of the album has different cover art and includes a booklet with more photos and biographical information. Also, the Korean label Dope Music's digipak of the album was released in 2004 and includes "UnDo Control (Live)" as a bonus track. It was recorded in Poland in 2002. The 2009 reissue includes bonus tracks and digitally remastered audio.

via Last.fm

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