How is it that bands I remember releasing their debut albums now are celebrating their 20 year anniversary? I guess I’m that old I suppose, but like all good things Dark Tranquillity has got better with age. Born of the out of the original Gothenburg scene, the band never sat comfortably in the traditional Death Metal camp and over the years have made a sound all of their own, blending melody, atmosphere alongside the more traditional Death Metal, creating a Death-lite sub-genre or melodic Death Metal as it is more commonly known.

“We Are The Void” is consistency personified and the formula that has stood the band in such good stead over the past eight albums is followed once more. That is not to say it is not an album with considerable merits, but it certainly won’t bring a whole wrapt of new fans flocking to their shows either. Throughout the record you do have a sense that these songs have been heard before but it is the quality of song writing that can’t help but win you over, and if imitation really is the best form of flattery then Dark Tranquillity are pioneers bar none. As they have spawned a host of clones over the years.

Mikeal Stanne remains a potent vocalist and a corner stone to the bands unique sound. His abrasive vocals while powerful and unquestionably vicious are never over the top and never descend into grunt and growl territory. The riffing is as you’d expect, in places melodic and tempered while in others like a rabid dog straining at the leash. If you can park the lack of any real progression from the bands previous offerings, then “We Are The Void” won’t disappoint even if it would set the world on fire. It is however testimony to the bands exacting standards that and album of this quality is considered run of the mill when in fact most would sell their soul for material of this consistency.