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It took 2 months, but finally this damn CD arrived in my mailbox a few days ago! I've been eagerly awaiting it since it was released on November 15th (but not in the U.S., of course). Well, was it worth the wait? For me? Yes. For you? Well, if you're not a completist you could probably live without it. The EP features two tracks from the upcoming studio album Character, one in remix form. The title track is the album version while the other, "The Endless Feed (Chaos Seed Remix)," is exactly what it suggests, but it's a pretty good, heavy remix. The title track is excellent and classic DT, though during the chorus I can hear myself singing part of the chorus to "Monochromatic Stains." The song "Derivation TNB" says in the liner notes that it features "severely altered bits and pieces from various songs from the upcoming album," but the song is only about 3 minutes long and sounds like one complete song: a mellow track that doesn't feature a chorus or anything, just some words sung over a semi-electronic beat and some guitar so I'm assuming that when they say "severely altered" they mean it and we won't recognize any of this when the album comes out. The last song is simply a live version of "Undo Control" taken from the Live Damage CD/DVD. It's a live song, and it sounds great, but whatever. I hate live songs unless they change it up enough that it doesn't play exactly like the original, or they're non-album songs,.
Lastly, there is a video for the title track and a screensaver. The video track is basically the band jamming the song first in what appears to be a dark warehouse, then it goes to the industrial city scene — which is almost sci-fi-looking — pictured on the EP and upcoming CD cover, from there it just sort of goes back and forth between the two and ends with Mikael Stanne throwing up the Dio Horns. It's a pretty interesting video. It amazes me how low budget videos look so good these days! As for the screensaver, I'm not installing it so I can't tell you what it's like. They usually suck, anyway.
All in all, I'd say this is a pretty good EP and worth the few bucks it'll cost you if you order it from the right place, like The End Records. It's also good to see at least one semi-mainstream (i.e. popular for a metal band) melodic death metal band still playing heavy music. It's been three studio albums since Mikael sang in a clean tone for more than a few seconds. Projector — the album that features much clean singing — was a great album and most bands would continue incorporating that style with future albums, but Dark Tranquillity did it on that one album and then abandonded that style. I'd like to see a little more of the clean singing, and I can't speak for the upcoming full length, but from early reviews it seems to be very heavy in all departments, so I'm assuming there is no clean singing. Check this EP out if you're a fan, if not I'd wait for the full length — or any other DT album — if you're interested in hearing them.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Lost To Apathy |
| 2. Derivation TNB |
| 3. The Endless Feed (Chaos Seed Remix) |
| 4. Undo Control (Live) |
| 5. Lost To Apathy (CD-Rom Video) |
| 6. Dark Tranquillity Screensaver |
: 17.32
| Buy other Dark Tranquillity albums |
