Everlost pt2

[Gums]

This song is just so damn good. I love it.
Also, who plays the ending guitars? Does not sound like Jesper. Is it Carl Naslund? That is good shit. I can't think of any guitar passage even remotely comparable in their discography. I know the song is different than the rest but still..
Who is Jennica Johansson - is she related to Fredrik Johansson? How many Johanssons are there anyway?

 

[drawntoblack]

On metal archives they lists a certain Nisse B. for guest guitars on that track. No idea who that might be.

 

[Gums]

The plot thickens!! Somebody knows something.. where are the internet detectives at? Who is the mysterious Nisse B?!

 

[Gums]

It really makes me think.. didn't they put this album together in like 2 weeks or something ridiculous like that? They did that with like 6 guest musicians, a session vocalist who hadn't really done this before, a producer who was pretty much learning how to handle this music on the fly, absolute crap recording quality.
It makes me think, if they had the time and resources available, combined with the youthful ambition and ideas.. what this album could have been. It's no wonder they recorded a few of the songs again later.. to finally realize the original vision.

 

[Pallbearer]

Who is Jennica Johansson - is she related to Fredrik Johansson? How many Johanssons are there anyway?

There are over 250,000 as "Johansson" is the most common last name in Sweden. So good luck trying to find out more about Jennica I guess.

MetalStorm.net has "Nisse B" appear as "Nisse Bostedt." However, "Nisse" is usually rather a nick name for guys called Niklas/Niclas and Nils than a real given name.

My uninformed guess is that both Jennica and Nisse were just some friends/acquaintances of the band members who were invited over to help out a little, and who ended up choosing a different career path than music.

 

[eochaid]

So... I mostly agree about the song and the album. I like a lot this kind of folky songs with female vocals. Then, about the album, my guess is that, contrary to what it used to be (with metal bands) in the past, they entered the studio with only a couple of songs, or prpjects of what would be later songs, and then wrote everything in just a couple of weeks with no real idea of what they wanted their sound to be like.

But, as far as we know, this also happened in the following albums. And I mean the lack of time. So, it's hard to say if things would be really that different if they had more time to develope the album.

 

[Gums]

That's true. Impossible to know. I read that DT had all these big ideas when the wrote Skydancer, but the producers weren't able to execute what they wanted. I wonder if some of that was the case here. I think in most cases they kinda pulled things together quickly anyway, so maybe the added time and/or tools/production opportunity wouldn't have changed much.

 

[DE4life]

I like the chaotic, unstructured vibe of Skydancer. Production does hamper the sound, but there's still some tracks on there I really like. I think it's more developed than Lunar Strain, but both are very much bands in their embryonic stages and both lack in the production department. IF and DT both drastically improved that side of things within a couple of years. I would have loved to have heard Everlost Part 2 and Upon an Oaken Throne rerecorded around the Colony era, as they did with Behind Space and Clad in Shadows, but sadly that ship has long sailed - unless The Halo Effect surprise us with a cover, but I get the feeling they wouldn't want to touch any old IF stuff.

 

[Gums]

Crimson Winds is such an awesome track. The climatic guitars are just fantastic. Somehow the shitty production fits perfectly with it, gives me chills right from the opening riff.

 

[DE4life]

Yeah Crimson Winds is a nice track. There's something about almost every song on Skydancer that I really like, and the production does add a certain charm. I actually prefer the version of Alone on Skydancer to the better produced version on Of Chaos and Eternal Night - the atmosphere on the Skydancer version is just more bleak, and it suits the song to have that kind of tone. Although with that said, both versions are good. I'd say the song that is least affected by the production is probably Through Ebony Archways - one of the simpler tracks on the record, with a lot of clean singing and not a huge amount of electric guitar distortion. Just put it on and that opening is so nice. Also shows that Stanne's pipes were pretty impressive from the beginning with those cleans, and his growls on Shadow Duet are pretty solid as well.

 

[Xpyro125]

I mentioned it in the Metaphor thread, but the ending portion of Everlost, Pt. 2 is exactly the kind of bluesy sound I love hearing from the band. They’ve only really done it a few times, and none quite like that ending portion, but I do love all of it. There really isn’t much like it out there in metal without having to sift through the trite of modern metalcore, and that’s a massive shame.

 

[DE4life]

I'm not sure Bjorn has ever played that kind of music, so you're probably unlikely to hear it again from In Flames. I'm sure there are other bands that have those influences, but I don't know any personally.

One of the things that take points off the Behind Space '99 recording for me is that they didn't include the outro in any fashion. They had Pallars Anders Visa on Colony so it's not like it would have been wildly out of place. I wouldn't have minded even if they'd rearranged it a bit, but to leave it out entirely was a letdown.

 

[Xpyro125]

I'm not sure Bjorn has ever played that kind of music, so you're probably unlikely to hear it again from In Flames. I'm sure there are other bands that have those influences, but I don't know any personally.

They 100% haven’t done in as technical or artistic of a manner as Everlost, Pt. 2, but Satellites and Astronauts, Metaphor, maybe Evil in a Closet but not really, that really brief passage in Our Infinite Struggle, the intro of SOAPF’s title track, The Attic, and Siren Charms’ title track all have a bit of a bluesy sound to me to varying degrees. Not so much S&A or Evil in a Closet, but the rest of those all definitely have it. Unfortunately, Our Infinite Struggle’s portion is I think just four bars, The Attic is something I have to be in the mood for (And most people just don’t like it), and Anders outright ruins Siren Charms’ title track (I pirated SC’s instrumentals just for it), so the blues sound rarely has many good moments for me.

One of the things that take points off the Behind Space '99 recording for me is that they didn't include the outro in any fashion. They had Pallars Anders Visa on Colony so it's not like it would have been wildly out of place. I wouldn't have minded even if they'd rearranged it a bit, but to leave it out entirely was a letdown.

Completely agreed. I think it would’ve been perfect to making Colony keep up with the secondary folk sound that was so beautiful in TJR and Whoracle.

 

[DE4life]

SC instrumental (album as a whole, not just the title track) is actually quite OK background music. There isn't really anything special happening at any point, but instrumentally it's mostly alright. Anders' vocals are a big problem on the album, partially because they don't sound good (bad mix, can't sing) and partially because his vocal rhythms are at odds with the music itself. It wasn't a surprise later on when Anders admitted there was division between the band during the recording - you can literally hear it between the vocals and the music. They are going in different directions entirely. There's only a couple of tracks where they seem to be on the same page - With Eyes Wide Open and Through Oblivion. The latter has little instrumental complexity though, so that's not exactly surprising.

 

[Gums]

In terms of non-harsh vocals, Anders is at his best when he has good, melodic music to work with, and he makes his vocals blend with the music. You don't notice it too much, and it just adds a bit of a layer on top of the music. If he's out on his own, forget it.

 

[DE4life]

That and not abusing the autotune/protools to ridiculous levels. His cleans sounded best to me when they were flawed but natural - Reroute, STYE, CC era.

Foregone, to me, is the worst. Pure Light of Mind is so fake it might as well be a random AI voice. When you've literally edited your vocals to the point where it doesn't even sound like you anymore, surely you have to ask what the point is?

 

[Xpyro125]

Even with that Pure Light of Mind is one of the only tracks on that album that feels genuine and anything like In Flames to me— At least post-Jesper. The guitarwork, although alt rock, has that sense of melody there, and the lyrics aren’t just those of Meet Your Maker. Fuck that song. I know the vocals are autotuned to shit, but it kinda just works as an alt rock song for me. I’d rather that than modern metalcore/deathcore any day.

 

[Gums]

Don't get me started on this! We all know how this ends.. nobody wants that!

 

[Xpyro125]

So yeah, Foregone sucks, agreed