Five Former Members Of In Flames Unite In The Halo Effect

[eochaid]

It was like he read my parody article about how the members were a part of all bands except In Flames

What if he actually did?



Here's the link. Video and audio are far from perfect. But I bet that soon we'll have an official release by our good boys from Wacjen at their youtube channel. It also starts a minute before they enter the stage. But, I think is good enough.

 

[DE4life]

Cheers bro. I am ripping the audio tracks as we speak (we turn to stoooone).

 

[DE4life]

Seriously tho, that intro to A Truth Worth Lying For is a major "tribute" to Swim

 

[DE4life]

Audio volume is a little low on these, so you may have to turn your speakers up a bit

Intro & Days of the Lost



The Needless End



A Truth Worth Lying For



Conditional



Gateways



(strong World Within the Margins vibe about 3/4 through)

Feel What I Believe



In Broken Trust



Last of Our Kind



The Most Alone



Shadowminds



Acoustic Outro



Mikael Introduces the Band

 

[The Grayfox]

Thanks for the work guys.

 

[Xpyro125]

Ehh... I kinda like Slipknot they aren't great or anything, but I respect that they've kept at it despite all the shit thrown their way. I genuinely do like some of their stuff... but generally a handful of songs amongst a lot of stuff that is pretty average.

But yeah as @eochaid says, different stage for THE.

Slipknot's one of the few nu-metal bands that I still legitimately like- Probably the only one that actually grew on me as time went on. I personally don't get the hype people have around his Iowa vocals being special as yeah, they're really fucking good, but at the same time, he had absolutely goddamn horrid technique that would've fucked his voice had he kept at it. Not sure how I feel about them as a band/people, but I do quite like the aggressive shit they have. Not sure how to feel about their lighter stuff though, it tends to be seriously hit or miss.

Well, like pretty much every song that one sounds fucking incredible as well.

I tend to agree - I think live especially it's noticeable how many of the tracks are mid-tempo, and even though they are all awesome it isn't encouraging the crowd to move much. Now I sound like Anders, but still, you get what I mean.

I don't know about the non-single songs, but "Shadowminds", "Feel What I Believe", and "The Needless End" are all 100 BPM, while the title track is 172. I'm not too surprised that even more of the album tracks are mid-tempo, but it's all really good shit.

Too bad Jesper wasn't there. But Jensen dude is doing a great job and seem to have a good stage presence.

It's so cool they're all so into it. Like this is their first big stage in life. Just feels...honest I guess.

Fuck, I can't stop fanboying. Sorry.

That's kinda just it- This really is a passion project for them. They have nothing to prove, they just want to get out there and make and play good music. Honestly, it's (almost) everything we could want or ask for from them. Except for the intro and outro, I concur with wanting studio versions of them.

 

[Xpyro125]

Also, thank you guys for getting recordings of the show for everyone. I was stuck at work for ten hours and missed it, so it means a ton to see it here.

 

[eochaid]

At last, I'm hearing vibes from the previous bands. A Truth Worth Lying For reminds me a lot to DT while Conditional has an intense IF vibe, not from an specific era but as a song that could be in a lot of IF albums.

Feel What I Believe is another insane song live.

 

[DE4life]

The intro to A Truth Worth Lying For is pure Ropes/Swim... I mean, so much so that it's actually uncomfortably close song is a bit too uptempo to be DT, but the chorus is reminiscent of a song like Standstill from Moment.

Most DT sounding songs for me are Shadowminds & The Needless End. Maybe Gateways at a push, although the section starting around 3 minutes in is clearly heavily influenced by the Worlds Within the Margin melodies that start at around 03:50 in that song.

 

[eochaid]

More reviews.

 

[DE4life]

Having heard all of the songs in decent quality now, albeit live, I'm in no doubt that this will be a top tier album for me. I don't think there's going to be a song on here I'd rate lower than 8/10.

For anybody who cares, Arch Enemy are on the live Wacken stream in about 20 minutes.

 

[A88]

Same here. These songs are all 7.5-9.5/10 in my book. I can't remember the last melodeath album of such quality.

The only thing missing here is one, maybe two faster songs and a few more technical solos here and there.

But, it is always better not to have those, than to have some forced, generic shit that would ruin the experience.

 

[DE4life]

Say what you will about Alissa as AE vocalist, but she has some set of pipes on her. Live vocals sounding pretty much identical to on record. Same with Stanne. Then you've got Anders, who if he manages 10 seconds of death growl is considered a legend to some

Same here. These songs are all 7.5-9.5/10 in my book. I can't remember the last melodeath album of such quality.

The only thing missing here is one, maybe two faster songs and a few more technical solos here and there.

But, it is always better not to have those, than to have some forced, generic shit that would ruin the experience.

Other bands try, but the masters show us all how it's done. Still can't be bested when they all have a common purpose and motivation. Such a shame that Jesper and Niclas in particular have really had their talents wasted over the years. Jesper because of his addiction issues and attempts to compromise with IF commercial direction, whilst Niclas never really had a proper MDM project to call his own until now. Being Bjorn's rarely utilised sidekick in IF was seriously beneath him. I guess at some point he realised that.

Album as a whole is fine, but when those are the only songs they can play live it means majority of the set is mid-tempo. Once they get some more songs under their belt it'll help things in that regard. Sounds like second album is well on its way to being ready, so I expect there will be some solid variation there.

 

[A88]

I always thought Engelin was underrated in the genre. First two Gardenian albums were pretty much close to what IF was doing at the time, but with a twist and worse production.

 

[DE4life]

Production is definitely what drags the Gardenian stuff down, which is odd because I believe the first two albums were produced by Nordstrom. Sindustries was better in this regard, albeit produced by Peter Tägtgren this time. Engel has never really worked for me - there is some good stuff there, but their music never hooked me.

Arch Enemy throwing out an interesting festival setlist. Two live premieres and also throwing in a couple from Khaos Legions, which typically doesn't get much of a look in these days. No Gods, No Masters hasn't been played for at least four years. Granted I never really got into Khaos Legions, but it's cool that they're throwing in some lesser played and never played stuff at a festival. The Khaos Legions stuff actually sounds pretty good live, I might have to go back and give that album another chance. From memory it was the last one they did with Gossow and Chris Amott.

 

[A88]

That was a terrible album. Cheesy and generic.

 

[DE4life]

Probably why I didn't like it then even average stuff can sound great live though. It's a shame they only use Fields of Desolation melodies as an outro, rather than playing the whole song. Awesome melodies they are, though.

Anyway, Powerwolf are on in half an hour, but I gotta balance this with watching football highlights Swansea 0-3 Blackburn, this year... this is the year

 

[galvanized]

If In Flames start throwing out really old songs then we'll know this bullshit about THE not having any affect on them is a lie.

Heard IF opened with Stand Ablaze. You called it bro.

 

[galvanized]

Audio volume is a little low on these, so you may have to turn your speakers up a bit

Intro & Days of the Lost



The Needless End



A Truth Worth Lying For



Conditional



Gateways



(strong World Within the Margins vibe about 3/4 through)

Feel What I Believe



In Broken Trust



Last of Our Kind



The Most Alone



Shadowminds



Acoustic Outro



Mikael Introduces the Band

Beginning of a Truth Worth Lying For gave me goosebumps. I turned it off after 30s when the verse started. Gonna wait for the album release.

 

[DE4life]

Lol yeah. I mean, come on. Old songs is one thing, but fucking Stand Ablaze? What possible reason could they have for choosing that beyond wanting to grab the attention of people who have been following THE? As awesome as the track is it makes no logical sense to play that beyond trying to grab some headlines.