Can Dark Tranquillity do any wrong? The answer is no. Despite lineup changes, the band continues to break new ground and explore creative directions. Unafraid to push boundaries, they deliver on stage with the optimistic and charismatic presence of Mikael Stanne, one of the friendliest figures in metal. However, the past four years, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, have changed us all. While we’re tired of talking about it, it’s a fact—both we and the world have shifted, still adapting to new norms.
Since their 2020 release of Moment, Dark Tranquillity has embraced a darker tone, moving toward a more aggressive sound beyond their traditional melodic death metal beats. The global climate and the looming sense of crisis inform their new direction, culminating in Endtime Signals. The album, one of 2024’s most anticipated, stands as a top contender for the year. Earlier this summer, Metal Insider spoke with keyboardist Martin Brändström about the band’s next chapter with their latest effort.
What was the creative process like for the new album, Endtime Signals?
Well, the creative process was a bit different because there’s a lot of new members. Much has happened since the last album. We made Moment right when the pandemic started. We were in the studio when we realized that was going to happen. I think ever since so much has happened in the world and to us as a band and to everyone that went through a pandemic and just how the world is today. When we decided to make the new album or to talk about how we wanted to do it, it was in 2022.
We discussed what we thought the Dark Tranquillity album should be or what it had been in the past or what we wanted to be in the future. We came up with these words that we thought resonated what we’d done in the past. What we came up with was that we always explored the territory of melancholy and rage. That’s what we wanted to explore again as a band. Also, we decided that we wanted to make an album that was diverse or broad and that we wanted it to be an album too, that was meant to be taken seriously.
That was the thought process we had before. I think when we start to write an album, you start with a blank sheet of paper and you have to allow yourself to play around a bit before you dare to touch anything. Because if you decide that, okay, the first thing out of our mouth is going to be something that’s going to be on the album, I think we would lock ourselves up and be hesitant to do anything.
We start just playing around me and Johan, who wrote most of the music. We were showing each other some ideas. He lives in the south of Sweden and I live in Gothenburg. For a year we went back and forth. I went down to Malmö where he lives, and he came up to my studio in Gothenburg. Every other week we went back and forth. In a year’s time we had pretty much all the material. Then we started to work with Mikael and he started to do the vocals.
We always have a really thorough pre-production where we basically make the album but in a demo form so we have a blueprint for when we actually go into the studio. We went into the studio in October 2023, and it was the longest record session we ever did in our career. I think in the end it was four and a half months we spent recording it. But we can do that because I have my own studio so we could allow ourselves the time. If we would rent the studio for four and a half months, we would be ruined. But now we could allow ourselves the time to explore stuff. We were done in March this year. We’re really happy with how it turned out.
For, Moment, I remember telling you guys that you saved the world with that album releasing at the perfect time. Now here we are, with a new process.
Yeah, it’s a new process. It was hard because we didn’t know actually what to do with Moment because we had recorded it and it was in the middle of the pandemic and we didn’t want to wait. I think the songs needed to get out there even though it would be a year away from us to be able to tour. We still wanted to release it the way we did with Moment. We’re really happy to get back at it again.
Are there any particular themes or messages explored throughout this record?
I think the themes, the musical themes, those I talked about. It’s the area between melancholy and rage. I think that’s what we are exploring musically. But Mikael, of course, has his themes for lyrics. If you followed Dark Tranquillity for a long time and if you met Mikael, you know that he’s an optimistic person. He always has a smile on his face and he has a bright outlook on life. But in recent years we have the pandemic of course, and we have in Europe, we have a war pretty close to our borders.
Also, what’s new for us, I think the world is a different place than four years ago, I think. I haven’t been afraid of democracy before, but that’s something new. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, we never had a harder time understanding each other than now I think. That’s something that colored Mikael’s process. When I talked to him about the lyrics, like I said, he’s an optimistic person, but he needed to write himself through some sort of depression about where we are at the moment. That’s weighing heavily on the album is his thoughts on our current state as in the world, I guess.
No, it definitely feels like the world has shifted over the last four years where it is definitely difficult to be an optimistic person during these times. Yes, Mikael is always smiling.
He still does. But when you see his work and the themes that he brings up, it’s a lot of it on his mind. It weighs on him. I think in the end he said it was therapeutic for him to go through this process of writing the album. I also think it’s bleak where we’re living. In the times we’re living in right now. It would be weird to do an optimistic album. But I think when we approach the feelings that we have now compared to four years ago, I think we faced these emotions together. If it’s not optimistic, I think it’s still something that will give us resolve to face it together. It’s really important for us to write about it and if there’s an audience willing to listen to it and if they feel strengthened, what we can hope for is to realize our own feelings in someone else. I think that makes us stronger and I think that’s why we are writing music.
Very true. You did say how this new album has significant changes because of the lineup. How has the new lineup shaped the writing for the album or creative process?
The newest members are Joakim the Drummer and Kristian the Bassist. We know them pretty well because they were touring the whole Moment album cycle. We’ve been playing with them for a couple of years, even though we haven’t written music together with them. But with new musicians, they come with some sort of hunger to make an impact. We realized that Joakim is quite a technical drummer, so that’s also why we decided that maybe we should revisit faster material again. That’s an element for the album as well. That was exciting.
Kristian, we have known him for a long time, the bass player. He is from Gothenburg and he’s been in the scene forever. He knew instantly what to do on the album. That was great to work with these new musicians. I think also when you introduce new people to your process, you have the chance to reevaluate it for yourself. Because you have to explain the process to a new person. I think it was much clearer this time how we worked and why we worked the way we did. I think that had an effect on the album. We also decided to keep it more open, more organic. Allow ourselves to make mistakes. It didn’t need to be as polished, we felt because I thought we had a natural groove together on this album that we wanted to keep.
Did you guys face any significant challenges in this process?
Well, the challenge is always in our minds to get it right. From my point of view, it took longer than ever to feel that way. Maybe it was because we decided to have an album with a lot of different flavors on it. We have everything from ballads to mid-tempo songs to the gloomy, more cinematic songs to the fast songs. There were a lot of different flavors that needed to gel together. That took a long time to find a way for all those aspects to fit. Well, I work a lot in Dropbox because I do it on different computers, and that broke down on me. I think we lost two weeks of work during the album session. That was a challenge. But I don’t know how interesting that is to anyone else. But those things happen.
Yes. Technical issues are always fun that you can’t even explain half of them.
No, it was just like it was infuriating and we lost a lot of work and it was Dropbox’s fault in the end. I don’t know.
Now with Mikael, being part of the Halo Effect and other projects, how has it been working around his schedule?
For us, for Dark Tranquillity it works fine. Because we are the top priority. It’s more like the other bands that have to work around our schedule. The schedule is fine, but it’s also Mikael’s energy that needs to be taken care of so that he can do all these things. But I never experienced it as a problem. I think this is something that Mikael needed to do. He started with Halo Effect, it was four or five years ago.
I think it was at the same time where we had a lot of memberships and Dark Tranquillity didn’t look the same as before. I think Mikael needed to explore where he was as a singer outside of Dark Tranquility. I respect that. You need to, I guess, see yourself in different situations maybe to appreciate where you are. I think it works well. They’re totally different bands. Cemetery Skyline is Goth. Grand Cadaver is like old school death metal and Halo Effect is something else. I think it works well.
That’s a good point of needing to try different things to get right back to the groove of everything.
I think so.
With that being said, how do you think this new album will mark the next chapter for Dark Tranquillity?
It’s really early to say. Now we have some distance from the recording. It was done in March. Right after you’ve done recording, you don’t really know what you did because you were so into the process. For the longest time, an album is just thousands of problems that need a solution on your hard drives. But now with some distance to it, we’re really happy with this album. I think it’s an album that really shows respect to where we’re coming from.
What we always have been searching for with Dark Tranquillity. It’s also an album that shows that we’re still curious about making music in the future, even though it’s with different people in the band. We’re still working with a lot of the past members, even if they’re not on stage or in the studio with us much. Martin Hendrix the young guitar player is still our manager. Niklas Sundin is doing all of our artwork. We’re in touch with Anders Gibert the drummer.
It feels like, even though as a listener, a lot of things have changed, but here in Gothenburg, a lot of things are still the same. Because we’re working with the same people. It’s just not the same people in the studio or on stage. It’s a nod to the past and it’s a new starting point for the future with respect to our past.
A little fun question, I guess, will there be any metal cruises or fun events in the near future you can reveal?
Well, no, I cannot reveal a cruise. But I know that there’s plans for us to go, I don’t know what year. It’s the cruise that we usually go on, but I don’t know if it’s 2025 or later. But we will definitely want to go back on the cruise. It’s always a great fun to be on that ship. It’s a great atmosphere and I think all the bands have a great opportunity to do great shows for a dedicated crowd. We would love to go back there. I cannot reveal any information, partly because I don’t have it. I just know that we’re talking about it.
Yes. I can definitely say that the people who go on these cruises definitely appreciate you guys and respect you guys so much, and you always deliver an amazing show there.
Thank you.
Are there any leftover material from this record that you wish remained on a new album or an EP or something?
We release everything that we recorded. We recorded 14 songs, and I think the standard album has 12 songs, but there’s two more songs that’s going to be on deluxe editions. We’re not saving anything for the future. But we’re looking to do something because there is so much extra material.
We did one album called Exposures, where we collected all the bonus material we did up until then. But after that, I think it’s two decades ago. There’s so many bonus songs out there that’ve never been collected into an album format. I think maybe it’s time for us to do that again to put everything together.
Is there anything you want to add or say to your listeners about the new album?
Well, we are just looking forward to the release this album. We’re super proud about it. We want to show what this new era, Dark Tranquillity can do in an album format and also what we can do on stage. We’re really looking forward to coming out there and play. Thanks for sticking around. I hope you’re going to enjoy the next chapter of Dark Tranquillity’s lifespan and let’s see what happens.
