10 Dream Heavy Metal Tour Line-Ups
3. Dark Tranquillity, In Flames & At The Gates
This entry just writes itself now, doesn’t it? Together, At the Gates, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity made melodic death metal one of the most exciting subgenres of the 1990s, during a time when the extreme end of the heavy spectrum had been firmly forced underground by grunge and nu metal.
The trio are responsible for three of the best albums in all of death metal – Slaughter of the Soul, The Jester Race and The Gallery – and the fact that they are yet to hit the road in the same bill should be criminal. This concept has the potential to be a sell-out world tour and feels comparable to a more niche Big 4 run, with so many heroes of one game-changing movement uniting under one roof.
If this were indeed to occur in real life, the likelihood is very much that In Flames would be the headliner, with their popularity secured by the continued success of Reroute to Remain and the metalcore-tinged Come Clarity, before a move to more mainstream melodic metal in 2008. However, for the purposes of this fantasy tour, Dark Tranquillity shall be the main event: a reward for their impressive consistency and allegiance to keeping melo-death alive.