DARK TRANQUILLITY | SOEN | PERSEFONE

PERSEFONE

Coming to Toronto for the second time in their over two-decade music career, Persefone opened up this night of music for the Swedish co-headliners. After a very atmospheric intro, the band wasted no time at all breaking into a blend of progressive and melodic death metal, which both sub-genres had warmed the Toronto crowd up for the other bands, and the equally packed and incoming crowd responded accordingly. A longer-than-normal set time for an opener in my concert-going experience, with the large discography, the setlist only touched two of the albums and the most recent EP. The banter with the vocalist was short but poignant. “Let’s have some fun, alright?” was a verbal reminder of why we are all in this room together. There was also a moment when the vocalist asked how many people saw them on the 2024 visit, and about a dozen people, including me, responded, which is great that Toronto showed up early to not only experience but also follow this band.

Something has to be said about the whole band headbanging simultaneously in almost uniform cadence, something that not only translated to the non-stop crowd on the floor but also was one-upped by one of the guitarists jumping off the stage and playing a portion of the last song, with a circle pit travelling around them to finish off the performance. Persefone went out of their way to establish why they were opening for this tour. Much like the 2024 visit, nothing was explained about why there was no bassist or keyboardist for them in North America, something that would no doubt enhance future performances in a live setting, especially with new music hopefully coming soon.

SETLIST
‘Sounds And Vessels’, ‘One Word’, ‘The Equable’, ‘Stillness Is Timeless’, ‘Living Waves’, ‘The Great Reality’

SOEN

Soen, a progressive supergroup from Sweden, by a lot of people’s measurements ( and gets no argument from me) absolutely commanded the attention of the packed audience without even being on stage, with just the band intro screaming through the speakers from the 20th Century Fox intro, and one of the concertgoers at the barricade saying very loudly, “Are we at the movies?” The band made it to the stage with the first song, ‘Mercenary’, a track from the latest album, Reliance, released at the top of the year. The band made full use of both projectors in the venue, with the first song featuring the art and lyrics from the music video; a lot of the crowd joined in on the vocals, which were loud and powerful from the media barrier. The band and their stage presence are equal parts serious, with everyone on the same page. Although multiple band members had double duty with instruments and backing vocals, seeing all of the band members voice the lyrics with Joel, the vocalist, was a sight to behold. Joel even unironically name-dropped the band Tool when mentioning they’re not influenced by them, then proceeded to play ‘Fraccions’, which featured many similar time signatures.

For just over sixty minutes, the band rode the crowd’s emotions and energy on a rollercoaster of music, mostly playing songs from Reliance, while also making an effort to play songs from five of the seven albums in their catalogue. It must be stated that the track ‘Indifferent’ was played not only perfectly on stage, but also so powerfully that it caused my body to break out in goosebumps for the majority of the song. There may not have been much movement in this performance, which is the status quo for progressive metal, but the band absolutely took the liberty of making every single note, lyric, and everything in between count with technical flawlessness. It was nothing less than a great technical performance from Soen, who thankfully has always kept Toronto on their radar.

SETLIST
’20th Century Fox (Intro)’, ‘Mercenary’, ‘Antagonist’, ‘Fraccions’, ‘Memorial’, ‘Indifferent’, ‘Lascivious’, ‘Discordia’, ‘Lotus’, ‘Primal’, ‘Violence’, ‘Unbreakable’

DARK TRANQUILLITY

There was some serious weight to this performance, as Swedish melodic death metal godfathers Dark Tranquillity, who, for the last year, have been touring around the world celebrating not one but two album anniversaries (’95’s The Gallery and ’05’s Character). As a result of the co-headlining tour, the setlist was significantly lighter than the European concerts, which meant that fewer songs were in the setlist for the celebration of both albums, but there was still lots to celebrate, as paying homage to two legacy albums at the same time is very rare and usually not something that is done in North America. With an empathetic and signature vocal growl from Mikael Stanne, after a bit of the intro, the venue and its rabid crowd were transported back to listening to the open track from The Gallery, ‘Punish My Heaven’. I bring up the crowd because the movement and energy were ignited in a frenzy by that growl, like a strong cup of coffee. In unison, a lot of the audience was vocalizing the guitar parts, much to the shock of the band on stage, who no doubt could hear that through the in-ears.

The guys also took advantage of the stage projectors, playing the album art from all the band’s chapters, which just added to the experience. Attention was given to Martin, the keyboardist, multiple times during the set, as some songs got extended intros and outros, which brought a new dynamic to these classic songs; a great example was Martin playing the intro to ‘Lethe’ rather than the bassist taking the lead. Mikael made it well known that ‘The Emptiness From Which I Fed’ was his favourite song from The Gallery, even though it had never been played live before this anniversary run (one of the rarest songs in the band’s discography). The band was through the three songs for The Gallery celebration and onto the three Character songs. They breezed through these songs, bringing an intensity with the drums throughout the playthrough, but also both guitarists and the bassist didn’t play everything note for note, but instead brought a unique spin and flair to these songs, all while Mikael was conducting the band behind them with his arms when not singing and commanding the stage. I will forever be amazed by Mikael’s vocals, but there is something empathetically chilling during ‘Lost To Apathy’ and the “empty!…fragile!…weak!” which was more powerful as this popped up on the projector screen as well.

After celebrating Character, it was time to play other songs from the discography, bringing things to their most recent release, Endtime Signals. There was a quiet hush over the crowd as the words “CAN YOU HEAR THEM?” raced across the screens, followed by another awesome extended piano intro from Martin. This half of the set was a new song and an old song in rotation, which brought out some live classics with phenomenal visual album art with ‘Nothing To No One’, ‘Atoma’, and one of my favourite songs from the band, ‘Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)’.

The crowd never wanted the night to end, as it was made well aware that this was the end of the set; ‘Misery’s Crown’, the band’s long-standing closing song, made time stand still even before the band finished the last few notes. The crowd was begging for one more song for what seemed like an endless amount of time, which went on for multiple minutes. Dark Tranquillity was unfortunately done for the night, but with the promise from Mikael that a return would happen in the near future.

SETLIST
‘Punish My Heaven’, ‘The Emptiness From Which I Fed’, ‘Lethe (Intro & Outro Performed On Piano Instead Of Bass Guitar)’, ‘The New Build’, ‘My Negation’, ‘Lost To Apathy’, ‘The Last Imagination’, ‘Nothing To No One’, ‘Not Nothing’, ‘Atoma’, ‘Unforgivable’, ‘Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)’, ‘Phantom Days’, ‘Misery’s Crown’