Fifth album Last Fair Deal Gone Down released

With the band finally achieving a stable lineup with Renkse, Nystrom, the Norrman brothers and Liljekvist, the band began work on their fifth album, the first of four albums the quintet would release over the course of the next decade. While personnel issues no longer plagued the band, recording sessions were still difficult, this time due to financial constraints, which limited how much time they could spend in the studio. The band worked on recording the album off and on from April to December 2000, and while the stopping and starting proved to be troublesome, it also kept them re-evaluating and reworking their material in the downtime, something they felt ultimately helped the shaping of the album. The resulting album, Last Fair Deal Gone Down was released in May 2001, and marked the band further distancing itself from traditional heavy metal music , in favor of more of a hard rock sound. The band decided to release the Teargas EP shortly prior to the album release, essentially as a single, containing the album track “Teargas” and two B-sides . Another EP of music from the same sessions, Tonight’s Music , was also released shortly after the album. The band rounded out the year with a European tour with Åkerfeldt’s band Opeth , with Renkse and Nystrom even providing guest vocals at some Opeth shows when Åkerfeldt was experiencing trouble with his vocal cords. By mid-2002, the band had started to write material for their sixth album, and by October 2002, they had entered the studio to begin formal recording sessions. In April 2003, the band released the resulting album, Viva Emptiness . The album was promoted by the release of the single ” Ghost of the Sun ” and the similarly named Ghost of the Spring tour. The tour, which went through Europe with support act Daylight Dies , went as planned, though the band later had to cancel a June performance in Germany due to sickness, and had July festival appearances cancelled due to issues beyond their control with third party organizers. Still, the album was a success, being their first to chart on any official charts , peaking at no. 17 on the Finnish charts.