Five Former Members Of In Flames Unite In The Halo Effect

Not the direction I was hoping they will go. Decent songs but nothing special.
 
The Defiant One sounds good to me. Lots of melodies. Become Surrender is okay too. Doesn't seem like they are straying too far from the DotL sound with these two tracks, at least.
 
I won’t lie about my expectations regarding THE : the heaviness of Character mixed with the melodic genius of The Jester Race.

What we have : Passenger under steroïds with some guitar harmonies here and there.

It’s still nice but just not what I was expecting (I blame Niklas for that)
 
Jesper hasn't written TJR/Whoracle style stuff since... well, TJR and Whoracle. Not really sure if he's still capable or motivated to do so at this point. He had one song written solely by him on DotL and it was Last of Our Kind, which had pretty much zero resemblance to his mid-90s output. I mean, he and Glenn were at one point reunited in The Resistance and barely a glimpse of the old magic.

Might be best to just accept that sound is gone now. Best we can hope for is Colony/Clayman and early-00s DT mix.
 
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I don't think that they're interested on writting that material anymore. There's way too much space left for melodeath to just repeat what they've done before.
 
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What I mostly mind about these two new songs is the insistence on very simple rock beats that with high hats give almost a dance music vibe. This should really utilize a bit more aggressive approach to drums but whatever. Waiting for a proper recording, if its good great, if it's not it really doesn't stress me much. They are doing this for fun.
 
I'm still of the opinion that these are discarded so GS from the album. Why using them? They needed a proper length setlist.
 
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I'm not sure about the EP. First, they said that it was to he released by the end of the past year. Now, we have not even seen them recording at the studio.

Maybe, this is just a thought, they have decided to make the EP from the discards. I think that there were around 17 so GS that they recorded for DOTL.

The chorus from Become Surrender is too similar to In Broken Trust. So it would make sense to not include both in the album.
 
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Set list length actually makes sense because they are on a headlining tour and you need 14-15 songs for that. And these songs are definitely recorded because you can hear background keyboards in these live videos. Typically you add keyboards in at the very end of the recording process.
 
Hopefully they are just songs from DotL that didn't make the cut. Could still be put on the EP though, for sure.

I'm far more pissed off that they never released the acoustic stuff. I see no reason why they wouldn't. I really hope it's on the EP but at this point it seems like they just aren't interested in releasing it, for whatever reason.
 
The chorus from Become Surrender is too similar to In Broken Trust. So it would make sense to not include both in the album.

Yeah, that was the first thing I thought of. And it explains why I immediately disliked it. I actually hope they don't just release a carbon copy of the first album. I hope they use it as a base and expand upon it. If those two songs are on an EP, that's fine, but I would prefer something a bit different for a second full length. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy DoTL, I just don't think we need a part 2 of it.
 
I'm not sure about the EP. First, they said that it was to he released by the end of the past year. Now, we have not even seen them recording at the studio.

Maybe, this is just a thought, they have decided to make the EP from the discards. I think that there were around 17 so GS that they recorded for DOTL.

The chorus from Become Surrender is too similar to In Broken Trust. So it would make sense to not include both in the album.

Daniel said in an interview last fall that the plan is to release the EP before summer, prior to summer festivals/their own headlining tour. My guess is that the EP will have couple of leftovers from the album and hopefully couple of ”new” songs also.
 
Decent songs, no surprises, along the same lines as Days of the Lost. I would like to see some heavier and faster songs though. And I also they mix the new recordings more like Foregone.
 
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