When DARK TRANQUILLITY left Gothenburg, it had been the coldest winter in 50 years, with tons of snow, so much so, it threatened to prevent them from getting to the US. On the second date of their tour, the House Of Blues in Atlantic City’s Showboat Casino, was battened down for what turned out to be the “Storm Of The Century.” Washington DC, on route to the travelling caravan’s next stop, was already a whiteout, preventing anyone from heading further south. Luckily some of Tranquils are big poker fanatics. “We could have been stranded anywhere,” says frontman Mikael Stanne, adopting a lemons-into-lemonade attitude. “At least here you can find something to do.” Over a beer in the casino’s bar, as octogenarians serenade a member of their troupe celebrating another birthday, Stanne discussed the new DVD, upcoming We Are The Void CD and future tour plans.

About as far afield as one can get from the snow would be the African country of Tunisia, where the Swedes played in ’09. “We were worried. It was really hard to make sure everything was set up, but these three guys were really serious fans and they decided, ‘We’ve got to put together a show.’ They’d done like two or three metal shows before us. We had no idea what to expect. ‘Is it going to be a tiny little club?’ They wouldn’t tell us! We don’t really sell any albums in Tunisia either. I did an interview, in advance, and I asked, ‘Can you buy our CDs in stores?’ and the guy said, ‘No! It’s great, we download for free here.’ When we got there, it was fantastic. We stayed in a fantastic hotel. The venue was huge. When we walked in there, we thought, ‘This is going to be a disaster. It’s going to look empty.’ Closer to showtime, we looked out the windows and saw 500 cops! We thought, ‘Shit, what’s going on?’ But they reassured us, saying, ‘No, we need them, there’s going to be a lot of people.’ It turned out there was like 5,500 people and 5-600 cops. This was the biggest metal show they’d ever had in the country. It was beautiful and the fans were beyond crazy. We only got to stay two days. I can’t wait to get back there.”

Since viewing the documentary portion of their Where Death Is Most Alive DVD, the question on mine (and everyone else’s) mind is why original vocalist Anders Friden (now fronting friends IN FLAMES) was not interviewed. He’s seen/heard on demo quality tracks and AT THE GATES frontman Thomas Lindberg offers his take on the early days, but no Friden! Was he unwilling, or worse yet, not contractually allowed? “It was really sad (he’s not present), but we had a really limited time to record the DVD and Ander was out on tour. When he got home, we tried really hard to set up a day where he could shoot it, but it just didn’t work out. He wanted to do it and we had a ton of questions for him. He did take a look at the old footage we have of him! It’s taken us many years to get to the point where we can appreciate it for what it is and not be embarrassed by it, especially the rehearsal (room) footage. We didn’t even show it to the new members of the band and they’ve been in for ten years!”

You can understand why, as the core of the band grew up together and are fiercely loyal. “Friends first,” confirms Stanne, “because we grew up together. Even Martin B (Brandstrom, keyboards), we knew each other five, six, seven years before he joined and Daniel (Antonsson, bass), we’ve pretty known him since we were all 16 or 17. The band has become something bigger than just the six of us. No matter how we feel about each other, you have your ups and downs, like any relationship, but the band is always there, like a safety shield against everyone else.”

Moving to the new album, We Are The Void, the singer explains the title as “It’s the emptiness that everyone carries around with them and what we do with it. How we fill it, with something that keeps us going. You tend to hide your true self, to a certain extent.” Questioned whether the band serves that purpose, a sense of solace for Stanne and some of his bandmates, he says, “Absolutely.”

Much like the Haven disc, the current crop features shorter songs, seven of the eleven coming in under four minutes, yet it’s aggressive vocals over melodic structures, although the longest track ‘Iridium’ is once again left to the end. “It’s important,” concurs the frontman, with regard to the final running sequence. “It’s really tough, but Anders (Jivarp), our drummer, he’s the guy who ‘gets it’, that part. So we usually leave it up to him. He goes through different sets, listens to it at home. We try to have something that has a beginning, middle and end. It has some different stuff in the middle and I really like to end on a sombre note, something that makes you think a little bit and makes you want to put (CD) on again.”

Agreeing with his assessment regarding “different” material in the middle of the album, we discuss ‘The Fatalist’ and ‘The Grand Accusation’, both offering the sweeping dynamic changes (whispered lyrics and piano, to deadly aggro growls) which have always characterized the best elements of Dark Tranquillity. “When we start writing a song, there’s something that grabs my interest, or sparks my inspiration. For a long time, we just work on individual parts. I love that dynamic and it’s important to find that and keep it interesting. It’s important for the band as well, to have something interesting to play, that challenges you as well. We fix it, streamline it. Usually it comes naturally.”

While many of their contemporaries have toyed with/embraced commercial sounds, if not completely abandoned the initial death metal (‘Gothenburg sound’) element, it remains at the center of Dark Tranquillity’s music, especially Stanne’s approach. To hear him tell, it’s never really been something that’s interested them. “We don’t really think about it that much. We know that going commercial might be a good thing to do, to sell more albums, but that’s never been the idea of this band. We’ve never strived for that (commercial recognition). When we started the band, it was about making music that was aggressive, yet melodic, and different from everything else. We have to be able to look each other in the eye and say it’s something we’re proud of. If we betray those standards and principles that made us form the band in the first place, that would never work. We’d feel shitty about it. If we get a song that’s simple, straight forward, we toy with it, adding stuff, removing stuff, until it becomes something more intricate. The more we play, people will eventually get it. With each year, we get a bigger audience.”

“For the last album (Fiction) we concentrated on the eleven songs which ended up on the album. This time we did 15 and eleven ended up on the album. There’s two bonus tracks on the special edition (instrumental ‘Star Of Nothingness’ and ‘To Where Fires Cannot Feed’), one for I-tunes and one for Japan. We always planned on having all 15 released. The one on I-tunes is actually my favourite, but it just didn’t fit in the (sequencing of) album.” Speaking of bonus material, what’s on the DVD that comes with the limited edition? “There’s a behind the scenes for the video to ‘Shadow Of Our Blood’. There’s a longer version of the webisodes we did for the making of the album. It turned out really well. There’s some live stuff: ‘Therein’ and ‘Final Resistance’ (both from Milan, Italy).“

Touring without a new release being (legally) available presents a unique set of circumstances, as does the current trek, opening for KILLSWITCH ENGAGE (who took the band on their first North American run, back in ’02) and THE DEVIL WEAR PRADA, neither of whose fans are probably aware of the Tranquils. “For this tour, it really doesn’t matter if we do old or new songs, just put together an interesting set that shows our range. We’re doing the two songs that are on our MySpace (‘Dream Oblivion’ and ‘At The Point Of Ignition’). We’re going to change things up, because we’re doing some headlining shows on this tour too, where we’ll play four or five of the new ones, so we need to rehearse! This tour provides us with a big audience we haven’t played to, so we can introduce ourselves to them. It feels really good being here before the album is out, we can promote it. We’re doing tons of press. We’re preparing for a headlining tour. We’ll be back in May. I hope people go out and buy the album. We’re going to be around. We’re not going away. We’ll be doing six weeks headlining and we’re out now for seven weeks with Killswitch.”

As we prepare to leave the bar, a guy who is obviously planning on attending the evening’s show chimes something about there being three bands on the bill, “two shitty ones and one good one, that’s why we’re in here drinking now.” I’d agree with his assessment, but doubt we’d see eye-to-eye on which is which. Talk about chilly receptions!