Five Former Members Of In Flames Unite In The Halo Effect

[DE4life]

As metalheads I don't think any of us need to be too concerned about pop music being created artificially... studios have been doing that for years already without AI At the end of the day AI (at the moment at least) can't play live, and seeing a band in concert is an important part of most people's metal experience. People who can play stuff live will want to create their own stuff, it's human instinct to want to put your own work out there, not just play something generated by AI.

That's not to say it won't happen, or that AI won't be used to help artists when they're having a bit of writers block, but I don't think - for metal at least - it'll become an issue any time soon. Stuff like Pop, Country, even modern Hip Hop already has a ton of manufactured product out there, so AI or not it doesn't make much difference. Listen to Anders on Pure Light of Mind, which might as well be an AI rendition of an actual singer, and ask if it's not already happening?

 

[eochaid]

If we have in mind that IF need artificial tools to make Anders sing at the studio and they rely a lot on backing tracks live, then I'm not sure that metal is not going to walk that path too. I said IF but there are a lot of bands doing the same. Metal is now, closer to pop than it was ever before.

 

[galvanized]

AI could potentially help with creative songwriting and new song structures.

When the bigger artists start to run out of ideas they seem to default to pop song structures since that’s what all their professional helpers (teachers, producers, etc.) know.

Imagine if they were feeling stuck they could say “hey Siri, please generate a song outline for me for a song that is 5 minutes long but only repeats the chorus three times maximum and has 2 solos”

then after that, “hey Siri, give me two chord progressions with a key change in the middle. Make sure the chord progression was not used in Battles.”

Etc.

 

[DE4life]

You could argue all AI music creation software should by default exclude anything that was on Battles

 

[eochaid]

AI could potentially help with creative songwriting and new song structures.

So it would studying music.

 

[galvanized]

So it would studying music.

Yeah, but Bjorn is done studying. He just wants to play and jam.

If I created this tool I would market it as “assisted songwriting for the busy, professional, touring musician.”

 

[eochaid]

You probably meant lazy musician. Any musician that calls himself a professional should study music as much as possible. Anyone not doing that is just an amateur. No matter how much they keep on releasing albums and touring.

 

[galvanized]

Bjorn is a professional musician, he is also kind of lazy. My definition of professional is someone whose job is playing music. Limp Bizkit are professional musicians. They suck, but they are professionals.

 

[eochaid]

Well. Bjorn doesn't call himself a professional musician. Or so I think that I remember.

I think of him more like an instrumentalist (a guitarist. And, in that regards, I considere most of the metal players in the same way). And not one specially skilled, advanced or full of knowledge. He's good at what he does and that's it.

 

[The Grayfox]

I'm running an i9 12900 and an RTX 3070ti so I might push it a little more. It's very intriguing. I'm starting to think of albums that I wish had different vocalists and what could be done to fix that. It has the potential to be quite amazing.

 

[eochaid]

So, you're changing everything IF since ASOP?

 

[DE4life]

I'm running an i9 12900 and an RTX 3070ti so I might push it a little more. It's very intriguing. I'm starting to think of albums that I wish had different vocalists and what could be done to fix that. It has the potential to be quite amazing.

It does, although honestly Anders is not the best vocalist to train an AI model from, owing to the fact his vocals and the production of albums changes so much. You're limited to one album, maybe two at most as far as consistent training material is concerned.

For growls you might get away with TJR/Whoracle combined, although Anders pronounciation dramatically improves on Whoracle, and the production is noticeably different. Colony and Clayman you again may get away with, but Clayman's vocals are weaker than Colony's overall. Reroute's vocal production is so different that I'm not sure it fits in with anything else. STYE and CC are another two you may be able to pair up, although again production differences could make it awkward. After that you're kind of fucked, due to Anders' change to the yell/scream combination which an AI isn't going to be able to easily replicate or clone. Truthfully though, I'd question why you'd even want to try with his vocals after CC. SOAPF and Foregone probably the pick of the bunch post-2006, but both also wildly different in terms of approach.

When it comes to cleans, all I can say is good fucking luck. I don't think there's any two albums where they sound the same, with the usage of ProTools in particular ramping up massively after STYE. I'd say the best two to combine for cleans would be Reroute and STYE, but even then you have quite big production differences.

Compare to somebody like Stanne, who I think you'd have a lot more material to work with in terms of training a model. You could basically take Enter Suicidal Angels all the way up to Haven and not really encounter any significant differences in growling style or really glaring production changes. Damage Done is very different in terms of vocal style, mainly because Stanne's voice was failing by that point, so you'd probably have to exclude that. Character and Fiction would go fine together, and then from WATV to the present you have a pretty clear run of training material if, for some reason, you wanted to make a model of Robo-Stanne.

In terms of cleans also plenty of consistent output to work with, as Stanne's cleans have remained pretty consistent since 1999. Shouldn't be much of an issue in terms of building a model with lots of audio to work with.

 

[Moonshield_]

@Moonshield_ check your inbox as far as Path of Fierce Resistance is concerned, haven't done it yet but I'll get to it. So far I've tried A Truth Worth Lying For, Days of the Lost, Feel What I Believe, In Broken Trust, Last of Our Kind and Shadowminds. Conditional definitely the best suited, FWIB sadly the least. Gateways vocals also sounded pretty bad for this model, unfortunately, so I haven't even attempted that one and probably won't.

Edit: Actually, In Broken Trust is probably the least suitable, I actually had to use some of Mikael's vocals as backing on the verses because the model struggled with the general vocal stem.

Thank you very much, it sounds amazing. It’s like opening a door to an alternative dimension where In Flames would have kept on being truely good at melodeath…

 

[DE4life]

I'm actually quite curious when it comes to people who say they dislike Stanne's vocals - do they mean they've always disliked his vocals, or just past a certain point? I can understand from Damage Done onwards, as his growls changed quite significantly from that point onwards. Damage Done his voice was on the verge of collapse and you can hear that compared to previous albums. The 'shouty' style works for me, in the same way Anders' painfully strained voice on Clayman works, but I can understand that people might not appreciate it. Post Damage-Done he becomes more robo-Stanne, out of necessity more than anything else, and although he was still solid he lost a lot of the power and flexibility he once had.

Pre-Damage Done, though, I find his vocals pretty great. Particularly during the 1994-1999 period. He's a lot looser in his delivery, there's more raw energy and a lot of emotion in there too. I've taken the vocal stems from various MDM bands from that time period, and Stanne stands out as by far and away the best when it comes to control and technique. Not only that, but his vocals have a lot less filters and processing compared to the majority of his peers. Anders, by contrast, has a shit ton of effects and processing on his vocals - to the point where at first I thought the vocal stems were exporting in really poor quality. Turns out no, that's just how the vocals sound if you remove them from the music. They're engineered very specifically to work with the music, whereas Stanne's vocals are much more natural and real. I have a lot of respect for that, even though ultimately the technique he was using did cause his voice to fail in the early-2000s, forcing the switch to what we've had from Character onwards.

As far as cleans go, Stanne has been remarkably consistent in how those sound throughout the years, but can certainly see that they could be considered an acquired taste. Sometimes I like them, sometimes not so much. Depends on the song.

 

[eochaid]

I think that he's a very good singer. It's his voice tone I usually have a problem with. Oddly enough, I think that it fits great into THE.

 

[ThePhobiac]

For me, it's rare for a death metal vocalist to ever *add* to the music -- at best they're decent white noise that lets me concentrate on the instruments, and at worst they actively detract from the experience. I don't typically listen to this music for the vocals. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate good lyrics and a good frontman can do a lot for a band. But when I was first getting into this music I trained myself to ignore the vocals as much as I could, and it's hard to shake that habit.

Stanne was good from The Gallery through Projector -- I liked his energetic performance and his excellent lyrics. He added to the experience. From Haven through We Are the Void he was more "acceptable" to me. Not bad, not amazing, but solid, and easy to ignore. Not that he sounded the same on every album during that period -- I liked when he started having that raspy affect starting with Character. I used to compare him with Anders when I was getting into DT for the first time. For my money, during the 2000s, Anders had higher highs and lower lows than Stanne, who was more consistent.

Starting with Construct I started to somewhat dislike Stanne's performances in general, including on Days of the Lost. I think it's less about his technique and more about his lyrics. They're too "conversational" and feel more like thoughtful social media posts or something you'd hear on a podcast, but set to heavy metal music. His lyrics for the past ten years have lacked a certain poetry. From "Caves and Embers" on Atoma:

What separates us from the others
A difference in choices made
We take an insignificant stance
What would we do in a opinion vaccuum
When left unaccountable
So here we are far from the world
Just wasting away

To me it's the lamest and cringiest passage on that album. The subject matter isn't bad and I appreciate the thoughtfulness behind it. It's just too literal for me and sounds so weird when screamed the way it is.

Probably not fair to compare because everyone will have their own approach, but I find Lindberg's lyrics for AtG are still great, even if the subject matter has remained the same forever.

Stanne's cleans are great, though. Can't complain about those at all.

 

[drawntoblack]

I don't know man, I appreciate the write up and the effort to express your opinion but I can't agree. Haven isn't even in my top 5 DT albums but it has tracks like Fabric and Ego Drama that are arguably some of the more rawer Stanne's output individually. In general, Haven's vocals have a very distinct flavor to them that I struggle to accurately describe with words, but the closest term that I can think of is savage. If I had to make a direct parallel to IF, I'd say it would be Clayman. Anders sort of figured out how to do it but still had some unhealthy habits that aren't sustainable but sure do sound great on tape.

Damage Done and Character are when he became technically more proficient. I'm incapable of objectively talking about Fiction but I would agree about WaTV and onwards - that's when his vocals lost all passion, it's all about fitting into the predesigned mold, being dynamically loud enough and having all the enunciation but it doesn't have any fire behind it. I imagine its partially due to being unable to risk damaging your voice, partially fatigue of having 10 albums done already and losing the spark that only adolescence can ignite.

Stanne is still very consistent and even his "bad" albums aren't bad, they are just mediocre. Which is more than can be said for majority if not all of his peers.

 

[eochaid]

https://blabbermouth.net/news/the-halo-effect-is-mixing-second-album-it-sounds-so-good

 

[DE4life]

The comments worry me a little as this is typically what you hear from bands who simplify their debut sound into something more straightforward and boring - see Cyhra. Really hope that isn't the case here. The reason debut albums often tend to be fondly remembered is because the band is still being experimental and putting all sorts of ideas together. Even if some of those don't work, the creativity and earnestness shines through in the end product. As time goes on that product becomes more refined and distilled, but loses the raw energy and passion of the earlier stuff.

With that said, these aren't young musicians starting off, and it's not like DotL was some kind of whirlwind mashup of multiple styles. It was just exceptionally solid MDM from the 2000s. So, I still have faith in these guys to deliver, I'm just burned from so many bands in the past saying the same things and then releasing something distinctly mediocre.

 

[DE4life]

Stanne was also asked if "Reroute To Remain", IN FLAMES' sixth album, which came out in 2002 and featured Jesper, Peter and Daniel, was an influence on the way THE HALO EFFECT approached the songwriting process.

Also still not sure why Blabbermouth bring this up in every fucking THE article. Songwriters for Reroute - Jesper, Bjorn and Anders. Songwriters for THE - mostly Niclas with input from Jesper. Why would Reroute have any bearing on the songwriting process? If the only reason is "Jesper" then you could substitute any album he wrote for IF and the question be as valid or invalid.