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Projector (album)

Projector
Projector album cover.jpg
Studio album by Dark Tranquillity
Released 10 August 1999
Recorded September 1998
Studio Fredman
Genre Melodic death metal, gothic metal
Length 54:23
Label Century Media
Producer Fredrik Nordström
Dark Tranquillity chronology
The Mind's I
(1997)
Projector
(1999)
Skydancer/Of Chaos and Eternal Night
(1999)
Alternative Cover
Japanese Edition Cover
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars

Projector (stylized : projector, or on the reissue, p.r.o.j.e.c.t.o.r.) is the fourth full-length studio album by the melodic death metal band Dark Tranquillity.

In January 1999, with the album recorded months prior and its release months ahead, Fredrik Johansson was fired by the rest of Dark Tranquillity, due to Johansson wanting to focus more on being a father, meaning also he couldn't tour with the band and leave his family anymore and he wanted to keep a day job as opposed to the difficulties of being in the music industry. There were mutually no hard feelings between both parties, but with all of Johansson's reasons, the band still saw it as a lack of commitment to Dark Tranquillity as well. The album marks the last new release with Johansson.

With difficulties always finding a new guitar player, a switch then occurred in the band when Johansson's empty guitarist position was then taken the band's bassist Martin Henriksson, who was reluctant at the time to do the switch, due to his belief of being an average guitar player, but still went on to do so. To take Henriksson's bassist position, the band hired Michael Nicklasson.

Lastly, since the album included a lot of piano, keyboards and electronics and the band wanting it to become an integral part of the band's later sound, the band also hired an additional full-time member, Martin Brändström as their first keyboardist ever to complete the new lineup to tour for the album. With the lineup, they played live bonus tracks of the reissue of this album and filmed a music video for "ThereIn".

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.


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