A Sense of Purpose

Ugh...well after forcing myself to listen to this three times, the only three half decent tracks on ASOP are I'm The Highway, The Chosen Pessimist & Sober & Irrelevant. Eraser owns them all though, so I've kept that one & binned the rest.

No I stood by In Flames through STYE & CC, but with this being their first album I felt I had to download first, I can't see a place for it in my CD collection. Sorry but no sale... I'd really rather have a Clayman II.

Well as long as we're ranking the albums;

Clayman & Reroute To Remain are both #1 to me. I can't decide which is better anymore.
The Jester Race
Colony
Whoracle
Lunar Strain

Come Clarity
Soundtrack To Your Escape
A Sense Of Purpose
 
I can't get past the intro of the Chosen Pessimist. Same riff goes on for 5 minutes. This song should have been cut in half, like they did quite successfully with the other tracks.
 
My rankings:

Mirror's Truth - 6.5/10: Some nice melodies and neat catchy chorus. The short length is suitable for the song.
Disconnected - 6.5/10: Again the R2R influence is evident here. The 'feel like shit' part is worth an extra 0.5 for the laugh.
Sleepless Again - 7.5/10: Sounds a lot like the older stuff. This track might have appeared on Clayman.
Alias - 6.5/10: Too tedious and plodding for my taste, and the chorus is too sing-along. The Moonshield part at 3:00 is cool, too bad they did it already in Moonshield.
I'm the Highway - 7.5/10: This song fits together well, some lead parts are overused but it's mostly classic IF.
Delight and Angers - 7.5/10: Anders has a lot more drive in his vocals on this one.
Move Through Me - 7.0/10: Thought I was listening to Soilwork at the start here. Very energetic and would be a good live song.
The Chosen Pessimist - 4.0/10: Crap. Crawls at a snail's pace with the same chord progression for the first half, then goes through a series of derivative movements that have been already heard on every melodeath CD for the last 10 years.
Sober and Irrelevant - 7.5/10: Would be the best on the album if not for the "rescue me" lyrics. Rips through killer riffs before a key change into the solo.
Condemned - 5.0/10: The verse riffs are ripped from some nu-metal act while the chorus melody is stolen from somewhere else.
Drenched in Fear - 6.5/10: Same formula as the rest of the album but nothing special here.
March to the Shore - 6.5/10: Decent song but some bits sound forced in the same way that CC and STYE were. Chorus doesn't fit with the rest of the song.

Weaknesses: Song structures are too similar. Some songs are too slow, lyrics are awful at times
Strengths: Improved riff progressions - they're more thought out than the last 3 albums, more versatile. Melodies go back to the IF youthful days.

Subterranean
Jester Race
Lunar Strain
Colony
Whoracle
Clayman
Sense of Purpose
Reroute To Remain
Come Clarity
STYE
 
Before you let your illusory elitism get the best of you, I'll point out that Lunar Strain is not straight Melodic Death Metal. In fact, it's more along the lines of Melodic Black Metal with some straight metal influences. Even Jesper has said that before (don't ask me to quote it, haha, cause it would take a while), but if you listen to it, all of the elements of Melodic Black Metal are there.

I'd go so far as to call it half Melodic Death Metal, but it's definitely not narrowed down to it.
 
Bozz said:
Before you let your illusory elitism get the best of you, I'll point out that Lunar Strain is not straight Melodic Death Metal. In fact, it's more along the lines of Melodic Black Metal with some straight metal influences. Even Jesper has said that before (don't ask me to quote it, haha, cause it would take a while), but if you listen to it, all of the elements of Melodic Black Metal are there.

I'd go so far as to call it half Melodic Death Metal, but it's definitely not narrowed down to it.
Click to expand...

right, melodic death or black metal, we all know that it's not mediocore.
 
Bozz said:
Before you let your illusory elitism get the best of you, I'll point out that Lunar Strain is not straight Melodic Death Metal. In fact, it's more along the lines of Melodic Black Metal with some straight metal influences. Even Jesper has said that before (don't ask me to quote it, haha, cause it would take a while), but if you listen to it, all of the elements of Melodic Black Metal are there.

I'd go so far as to call it half Melodic Death Metal, but it's definitely not narrowed down to it.
Click to expand...
And the difference between old school melodic death metal and old school melodic black metal is............almost nothing?
 
AntiWiggin said:
I know I'll be hated for this
Click to expand...
Yes, you will
Slipknot kicks ass!
Click to expand...

FAIL.jpg
 
The first riff of Condemned nu-metal? At the most I'd say it doesn't sound like regular In Flames, but it's definitely not nu-metal sounding...

And why all the hate on Slipknot? The music sounds good and that's all I know.
 
AntiWiggin said:
The first riff of Condemned nu-metal? At the most I'd say it doesn't sound like regular In Flames, but it's definitely not nu-metal sounding...

And why all the hate on Slipknot? The music sounds good and that's all I know.
Click to expand...

Nu metal riffs or not, the song kicks ass.

I prefer disturbed over Slipknot, if i had to choose an nu metal band, though i can't stand the genre. :puke:
 
After listening to a sense of purpose all the way through i can say that it was a tad bit better than i expected.

the acoustic guitars in alias makes me wonder why in flames dont utilize this more in their songs.

i enjoyed the 8+ minute track, found it to be something different and a bit of a risk doing.

all in all i thought it was ok, ill have to give it a few more spins to see if it's worth buying.
 
What the fuck happened to the production on this album? It is weak as hell! After a few listens through, I can say that if In Flames booted Anders, got someone whose screams didn't have a whiny, pussy twang at the end of every third syllable, t'would be a nice album. I like the leads in songs like I Am The Highway, but Anders sounds like a complete pussy even compared to work on Soundtrack and CC. And it's not like he can't still bellow out some deep growls (Disconnected @ 2:00), he just chooses to suck. Oh well, with the new Arsis CD out, I couldn't give two fucks whether In Flames put out Jester Race II.
 
I was waiting for the release of the cd to give it a listen but since the stream is available I decided to check it out. I'm pretty surprised! I love Alias, it's a fantastic song. Im The Highway chorus reminds me of Metropolis PT.1 from Dream Theater...the melody is kinda similar.
 
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