New Cyhra Album 2018-2019

[DE4life]

Going on with the diacussion, I think it's mainly Jesper's fault because of his Facebook posts. He later tried to solve things with other Facebook posts but it was too late. Remember that he said that he was going to attend one of the band's shows and there was no response coming from them.

Yeah, Jesper has been a dick tbh also contracting himself with the new albums, one minute saying it's great and promoting it, the next ripping on Anders' vocals and the musical direction of the band. Granted he hasn't done that in a while but he should really leave personal comments off social media. Just use it to promote Cyhra.

Isn't always like this when Jesper's name is involved with the band? That's part of being in the Anders man love crew.

I guess, but Slave takes it way overboard. Ciko and Krofi-kun are pretty chill even if they throw a snide here and there, but Slave just goes fucking ballistic over the smallest things. We need @only4theweak187 back in here to throw down some more psycho-analysis.

 

[eochaid]

Yes. If you can't solve your issues face to fave you shouldn't do it online.

Also, deleting your post is not the same than apologizing.

 

[Jester Slave]

Jesper can always go on the alternative route: make a bombastic record, so even if you behave like a depressed manchild, you have that covering up for you. Letters to myself was by no means bad, but it barely had anything to do with Jesper. Yes, it was fun first when you recognized those IF-sounding (or straight up copied) tunes, aaaaand... that's it.

The most exciting stuff for me was Jake and their experimentation with electronic and rap elements, but Jesper (or the rest of the band, really) could have been easily replaced and no one would have noticed. Then again, I probably wouldn't have listened to the record if not for Jesper's name selling it, so I guess there's that.

 

[galvanized]

Yes, honestly the only reason why we are listening to this is because of Jesper. But if he quits after/during the recording of Cyhra #3 honestly the band won’t be that bad off as long as Euge is there.

 

[eochaid]

Letters to myself was by no means bad, but it barely had anything to do with Jesper. Yes, it was fun first when you recognized those IF-sounding (or straight up copied) tunes, aaaaand... that's it.

The most exciting stuff for me was Jake and their experimentation with electronic and rap elements,

The second part of the album is pretty unbalanced. It feels as if the intention was to make Jake shine while the band was waiting to play a few chords. I like the songs but I don't like them all together. The rap part was made by an american melodeath singer.

I also expected more jesper on the album. And I hope that there's going to be more of him in the next one.

 

[galvanized]

That’s the weird thing about Jesper and IF that we are all trying to figure out. It seems like he was a critical element in the unique IF sound but he doesn’t solo and appears to need a high energy, enthusiastic partner to bring out his best. That’s fine. It’s like the Taoist saying, the best king is the one that appears to not be needed. He’s almost more like a creative counselor to other talent.

Maybe all he does is yell at people when they start to go soft or get too wanky with their playing. It seems to make a difference. If he wasn’t there would Cyhra already be a Nikky Sixx band or Pantera clone or some shit? Euge’s solo album is good but as metal heads we are hoping for metal out of Cyhra...

 

[DE4life]

Personally I think it's ridiculous to suggest LtM had little to do with Jesper and he could have been replaced and nobody would notice. Plenty of the riffs are signature Jesper sound. A lot of the lyrics are directly about Jesper's struggles with addiction. Literally the entire album direction in terms of atmosphere is based on Jesper. But yeah, other than that nothing to do with him I guess.

I also think "Closure" could easily have been on a modern IF release. Just imagine it with shit production and Anders' vocals ruining the song (although the AMLC would I'm sure swoon over Anders pouring his heart out, dem emotions, dat autotune, etc).

Let's remember that Jesper was the main songwriter for the majority of IF albums up until ASOP - and Anders was allowed to shine in a lot of those, especially post-Clayman. Are we saying that we take Jesper out of those albums and nothing changes? Of course not. Totally absurd statement.

I agree that I'd like to hear more of the old school dual guitar harmonies, but that aside there's plenty of Jesper across the entire album. It's just not the older school sound, more like the newer IF sound with much better vocals and a lack of Bjorn solos.

Also can somebody explain to me where the rapping comes into it? I don't hear that.

 

[eochaid]

What I'm saying is that in some songs, the guitars need more presence. You have to great guitar players and then make 4/5 songs where the main instrumental character is a piano or electronics. Those songs feel more like a Jake's solo album than a colaborative effort

 

[DE4life]

What I'm saying is that in some songs, the guitars need more presence. You have to great guitar players and then make 4/5 songs where the main instrumental character is a piano or electronics. Those songs feel more like a Jake's solo album than a colaborative effort

Sure, and I agree, but guitar isn't Jesper's only instrument. He plays piano and clearly has an interest in electronic music as well, so that's still his influence. My main gripe is anybody (mainly Slave) suggesting that you can take Jesper out and nothing changes on the album. Total bullshit as he probably wrote practically everything. He isn't just the guy on guitar. I doubt Jake wrote much beyond the vocal lines and some lyrics.

There's a part on Here To Save You where the song suddenly devolves into some weird electronic sounds (similar to System, actually) and I posted on the Cyhra FB that this should have been guitars, not electronics. Jesper 'liked' that comment so I think he gets it and we'll see more guitars in the next album. There's a lot of electronics on older and newer IF albums too, so clearly that's something Jesper likes even if people don't recognise that as being his sound. Obviously it is.

But anyway, rapping - where?

 

[Jester Slave]

edit: wtf, can't timestamp it. jump to 2:16.

 

[DE4life]

edit: wtf, can't timestamp it. jump to 2:16.

sorry, but that's not rapping. He's still singing. Fast singing doesn't = rap. By that token you'd say any verses in past IF songs where Anders does fast growling (eg. As The Future Repeats Today) is rapping. It isn't.

This is rap:



Doesn't sound anything like what Jake is doing in that song. There's no flow to what Jake is singing, it's just faster than how he sings most of the time.

 

[Jester Slave]

I won't argue about what to call it, but it's not usual at all. It's weird and it's borderline out of place. I personally like it and find it interesting.

Jesper put the bar so low for himself, that the mere fact he played some guitar in the same vein he used to 10-25 years ago is applauded. Great, he can still tune his guitars the same way, and he can give us minor flashbacks for 5 seconds in certain songs. Now wake me up when he actually does something remarkable. You all know the old IF catalog and what they were capable of, so you should also know damn well that Jesper didn't tire himself at all.

From a different perspective: he's doing something with his life now, he's actually playing music, writing new stuff, so hopefully generally a happy person. I'm happy for him, and maybe it's just stupid to expect anything more from him.

 

[DE4life]

There's no argument to be had, it just isn't rap. There's no beat for him to rap to. In theory you can rap without a beat, but then you need to use your vocals to create the beat. Take the instruments out and imagine Jake doing that in a rap battle. He'd get laughed out of the building because he isn't rapping. Personally I don't see a problem with it. Sounds fine to me.

Was LtM optimum output for Jesper? No, definitely not. The album is a solid 7.5-8/10 for me but it's not in the 9 or 10/10 range. That's fine though. I'm sure the next album will be better. If we get more songs like Karma and a bit more variation (less mid-tempo songs with a similar template) I'll be very happy with that. This is Jesper's first proper effort in putting an album together practically by himself since Come Clarity, probably? He said ASOP was more of a "group process" and I don't know what The Resistance was, so if this is the first album he's created largely by himself in 12 years I think we can give him a pass on it not being a masterpiece.

I don't know what you mean by "setting the bar low for himself". In what way? He obviously put a lot of heart and effort into this. He brought together a group of very talented musicians to help create the album. He put a lot of personal struggle into the lyrics. You admitted yourself he tried a lot of experimental elements - some hit, some miss, but he's hardly going through the motions here. I hear more effort in one song of LtM than the entirety of Battles.

If you were expecting something sounding like 96-00 era In Flames with clean vocals then yes, that was a stupid expectation. Those albums are 20 years old. Even at the time Jesper didn't want to do any more dual guitar harmonies (Nordstrom has said as much, apparently he had to practically beg the band to include them in Colony & Clayman) and there wasn't much of the old-IF sound post 2000 other than a few throwbacks here and there, so why would you think he'd suddenly be producing that again? It sounds like we might get more of it in the next album, but even then I'm not expecting Golden Era IF music. Much more likely to be closer to Reroute/Come Clarity sound with clean vocals.

 

[galvanized]

LtM was honestly pretty generic. Standing alone, it’s not something I would seek out to listen to. But in the context of Jesper’s career it’s different. I listen to it for the promise it holds for the next album.

Main issue I have with LtM is the “Jesper influence” is either blatantly an In Flames rip-off (Karma) or its just generic output that any number of professional rock musicians could write and play.

Yeah Jesper wrote a lot of it and it is competent writing and playing, but there is no magic touch. That’s why I said if he left there would not be a great impact. He would still have to be replaced by someone equally good, but many could take his place and little would change. So far.

We’ll see what happens next.

 

[DE4life]

I think calling LtM "generic" is pretty harsh. I appreciate it might not be everybody's cup of tea, but whilst some songs could be called generic (Dark Clarity, Muted Life, Dead to Me) there's a lot of variation in there too. Karma is an awesome melodic metal song. Inside a Lullaby is a well constructed piano ballad. Closure is an awesome, slow melancholic track with a great chorus. Black Wings has an unusual song structure. Here to Save You and Rescue Ride are fairly standard but very well done power metal songs. Heartrage, Letters to Myself and Holding Your Breath all have some unique elements which make them stand out too. Being a fan of the power metal genre this album is probably geared more towards me than most older IF fans, but I dig the effort even if not everything came off on this album.

I'd agree that there's no "magic touch" and there's not really anything truly special about this album, but come on. That's just unrealistic expectations imo. You can say that about a lot of good albums. They might not be amazing but they're still good. Last time Jesper was creatively a part of something that had a magic touch was Clayman, 18 years ago. I don't think anybody should expect that magic to return. Certainly not on a debut album with musicians assembled fairly rapidly.

What's frustrating is that people seem desperate to nit-pick this album, whilst at the same time desperately trying to find anything decent in the last couple of IF albums. If people put the same effort into finding something good in this album as they did SC or Battles it would be the album of the fucking century. Let's be honest, if we heard riffs like Karma, great songwriting like Closure or unique songs like Heartrage or Black Wings in a modern IF release the board would collectively shit its pants in joy. You only have to look back at the SOAPF thread to see that with the reaction to those songs, and that was before we were hit with the likes of SC or Battles.

 

[Jester Slave]

I expected him to try. He phoned his guitars in, but you are right: I don't know how much other work he did on the record. Maybe he drew the artwork, maybe he bought coffee for the rest of the band during recording, maybe he did pour his heart into it. I don't know, but his guitar play is... it's just there. It's all just "hey, check this out, I could do something nice here... but I'm gonna stop!" or "remember this from the old IF days?". Nothing interesting at all. The absolute saddest thing is that I can't even call it bad, because there's 0 effort in it.

Let the rap thing go. Point is, it's an unorthodox way of singing in a metal band. And I like it. To me, it's very similar to rap and hip-hop; to you, it's not. All cool, but it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Jake was trying there, and we could say that it sucked and he should never do again, OR that it was pretty nice, please do more. That is putting yourself out there, that is daring something new, something exciting - or, possibly disastrous. That is everything which Jesper's guitars on L2M were not.

You can strawman it by saying "oooooh, so it's not Zombie Inc. 2.0, booo hooo!!" but no one said that. Remember when Atoma came out and you guys linked it? I still haven't listened to anything else from DT and I still think those vocals are highly questionable, BUUUUUUUT (!!) that whole song is filled with fucking energy from beginning to the end. I have no idea who the guitar players are, I have no idea whether it was their trademark music or not, but it was fucking interesting. I'd like to believe that the driving force behind early In Flames is capable of at least HALF of that which was done in Atoma (song).

 

[DE4life]

I expected him to try. He phoned his guitars in, but you are right: I don't know how much other work he did on the record. Maybe he drew the artwork, maybe he bought coffee for the rest of the band during recording, maybe he did pour his heart into it. I don't know, but his guitar play is... it's just there. It's all just "hey, check this out, I could do something nice here... but I'm gonna stop!" or "remember this from the old IF days?". Nothing interesting at all. The absolute saddest thing is that I can't even call it bad, because there's 0 effort in it.

I agree that the guitar work could have been a lot better on the album. I wanted more stuff like Karma and didn't get it, that was disappointing. He went in a less guitar-orientated direction, focusing as much on electronics and vocals. Not too dissimilar to post-2000 IF albums in fairness, and considering he was the main creative force in most of those, it shouldn't be a surprise that you've got similar stuff here. Young Jesper hasn't time traveled from the year 1996 to create a new album. Current Jesper clearly isn't into the old dual-guitar stuff like he used to be. Sucks for those of us who like that stuff but it shouldn't really be a stick to beat him with either.

Let the rap thing go. Point is, it's an unorthodox way of singing in a metal band. And I like it. To me, it's very similar to rap and hip-hop; to you, it's not. All cool, but it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Jake was trying there, and we could say that it sucked and he should never do again, OR that it was pretty nice, please do more. That is putting yourself out there, that is daring something new, something exciting - or, possibly disastrous. That is everything which Jesper's guitars on L2M were not.

I really don't think it's as contentious as you do. I didn't even consider the vocals in that song before you called it rap. But yes, let's leave it.

You can strawman it by saying "oooooh, so it's not Zombie Inc. 2.0, booo hooo!!" but no one said that.

When people are talking about "magic touch", hearing "more Jesper," etc, what can it mean in context of guitars other than the stuff everybody lauds him for? And whether we like it or not that's mainly the 96-00 period. There's some nice stuff after that too, sure, but when people say stuff like that I automatically assume they mean Jesper's best work. If it means Come Clarity or ASOP then fine, my mistake. That's not what I think of when I hear people talking about Jesper's awesome guitar work though.

Remember when Atoma came out and you guys linked it? I still haven't listened to anything else from DT and I still think those vocals are highly questionable, BUUUUUUUT (!!) that whole song is filled with fucking energy from beginning to the end. I have no idea who the guitar players are, I have no idea whether it was their trademark music or not, but it was fucking interesting. I'd like to believe that the driving force behind early In Flames is capable of at least HALF of that which was done in Atoma (song).

Karma has as much energy as the song Atoma, so you can compare like for like there. Comparing the two albums side by side would be harsh considering DT's consistent output and band structure compared to the newly formed Cyhra.

 

[Jester Slave]

Karma is energetic because of Jake's performance, while the band assists him with the bare minimum. Yes, the in- and outros are more than decent, I give them that.

Atoma is energetic because of the music, while the vocalist utilizes his talent to paint an even more grandiose picture.

Karma wouldn't worth jackshit without Jake, while Atoma would be still decent without vocals. Jesper used to contribute to the latter.

 

[DE4life]

Again, you're working under the assumption Jesper only contributed to the guitar work on that song which is highly unlikely.

Even so, intro lasts 30 seconds. Guitars also contribute to the chorus along with the vocals so combined that's another 25 seconds x 3 and the outro lasts 40 seconds. There's also a really nice guitar melody/solo section at 2:11 which lasts 26 seconds. Combined that's 171 seconds and the track only lasts 221 seconds, so imo you're just completely wrong on this one, unless you expect the guitar to literally carry the entire song.

 

[eochaid]

Karma is one of Jake's less inspir

Karma is energetic because of Jake's performance, while the band assists him with the bare minimum.

Sometimes I read things and my mind is like "nah, that's impossible, just read it again".

This is one of those times.

The music in karma stands on its own. Its good and energetic and Jake's just adds to what was there. We can discuss rescue ride or black wings. But karma? It's like saying that embody the invisible is energetic due to anders. Well, if you close your mind and deny that there's some good music behind then it's possible.