Video Premiere: DARK TRANQUILLITY's 'Forward Momentum'

"Forward Momentum", the new video from Swedish melodic death metallers DARK TRANQUILLITY, can be seen below. The song is taken from the band's eleventh album, "Atoma", which will be released on November 4 through Century Media Records.

The "Forward Momentum" clip was filmed in the far North of Sweden near Kiruna by Vesa Ranta (SENTENCED, THE MAN-EATING TREE drummer) and directed by Harri Haataja. Vesa Ranta and DARK TRANQUILLITY already share a long history. Niklas Sundin created the cover artwork for the SENTENCED album "Crimson" back in the year 2000 and both bands toured together shortly after. In 2008, DARK TRANQUILLITY honored their friends with a cover version of "Broken" on the 20th-anniversary compilation of their label Century Media.

"Atoma" track listing:

01. Encircled
02. Atoma
03. Forward Momentum
04. Neutrality
05. Force Of Hand
06. Faithless By Default
07. The Pitiless
08. Our Proof Of Life
09. Clearing Skies
10. When The World Screams
11. Merciless Fate
12. Caves And Embers

A limited-edition double CD will be available as a digipak in North America and as a mediabook in Europe. The bonus disc features the songs "The Absolute" and "Time Out Of Place" that showcase a very different side of the band. Recorded and mixed by Anders Lagerfors at Nacksving studios, these tracks are among the darkest and most brooding ever from the band — but their experimental nature make them far removed from the usual metal territory.

The band explains: "A lot of our songs start out as pieces of music written on piano/keyboards before getting transformed into guitar driven metal. With this recording, we wanted to explore what would happen if we instead let the material take another direction, and we're extremely thrilled by the result."

These songs will exclusively be available on the physical deluxe edition of "Atoma" and won't appear on the digital edition of the album. A vinyl seven-inch single is planned for early 2017.

The gatefold vinyl LP will contain the 12 track CD and is available in different vinyl colors:

* Black vinyl: worldwide
* Blue vinyl: limited to 400 copies exclusive through Bengans in Sweden
* Dark Green: limited to 200 copies exclusive through CDon in Scandinavia
* Clear vinyl: limited to 400 copies in North America
* Transparent Blue vinyl: limited to 300 copies exclusive through cmdistro.com in North America
Transparent Red vinyl: limited to 200 copies exclusive available through cmdistro.com in Europe

"Atoma" was recorded at Rogue Music in Gothenburg, the studio owned by DARK TRANQUILLITY keyboardist Martin Brändström. Mixing duties were handled by David Castillo, known for his work with bands such as KATATONIA, OPETH and CANDLEMASS. The cover artwork was once again created by the band's guitarist Niklas Sundin.

The touring cycle for "Atoma" will start with a headline North American run in November, featuring SWALLOW THE SUN, ENFORCER and STARKILL as support acts. A European tour is planned for early 2017.

DARK TRANQUILLITY vocalist Mikael Stanne recently told That Drummer Guy about the songwriting process for the band's upcoming album: "It's been three years since the last album ['Construct']. We've been on tour constantly. We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do. These things don't get easier with time, as much you would like to think experience and time we spent writing songs over the years has taught us something. Turns out, it really hasn't. [Laughs] You still have to start from scratch every time you begin. We started at the end of last year compiling material, constructing songs, trying to come up with something that felt new and refreshing. You start going, 'Let's make an album that sounds nothing like anything we've done before and get away from ourselves as far as possible.' Sometimes you get tired of yourselves and your sound, so sometimes we start out like that to clear our minds and expectations. Then, of course, whatever material that passes through our individual filters, and the end result is something that sounds like DARK TRANQUILLITY anyway. It was long. More than a year and a half, compiling material, constructing simple structures into songs. Bouncing ideas back and forth. I think we had twenty songs at one point that we were going through. We distilled that down to twelve. Once we had the twelve, we really started focusing on making sure every song had that impact we wanted. The better part of this year we spent fine-tuning twelve songs and making sure everything worked. We got into recording in the middle of the summer, which was not a good idea. Spending every day in the studio with no windows was a weird thing, and it was stressful and tortuous. But it turned out great. Eventually once we got over ourselves, we started enjoying recording. Being incredibly satisfied with the end result doesn't hurt either."

Regarding his lyrical approach, Mikael said: "It comes from frustration of feeling hopeless in a way. There's a lot of frustration in there. I don't like to be just all-out negative. I'm not depressed, but I'm angry and frustrated and I wish there was something I could do about what's going on in our lives and world. It's more frustration. When I listen to death metal, anything really powerful and emotional, for me, it's a release. It triggers something in me that makes me feel better after going through an album of pure frustration and anger. I think that's something I've always been attracted to. That's something I try to do in our band as well."

Mikael also spoke about finding the inspiration to finish "Atoma". He said: "For us, it came out in the beginning year when Martin [Henriksson, guitar] left the band, one of our founding members. A lot of things we went through. We went through really long tours where maybe the motivation started lacking a little bit. We started questioning ourselves in many ways especially after Martin left. We asked, 'What is it we actually do and why does he feel this way?' 'Was it something we did?' He didn't have the motivation to keep going. I think that solidified the fact that this is what we love to do and live for. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we get to do the thing you love, almost for a living. You take things for granted. I think we started re-evaluating the band and our place in it, and the band's place in music. We started feeling good about that. But at the same time, we also felt we needed to prove our place here. 'Why are we allowed to make eleven albums?' 'Why should we still be relevant?' We have to prove ourselves with every album, and even more so with an album every other year. That puts a lot of pressure on us. But it is just pressure we put on ourselves. We want to improve and come up with that perfect album every single time. We won't accept anything else. I think that's one of the things that makes it so difficult to write nowadays. At the same time, it should be hard. If it's too easy, it's not good enough. It should be a struggle and full of frustration and endless sleepless nights, and conflict. What happens is something amazing once you come together and you finish a project like this."

Photo credit: Dirk Behlau