If Anything, Suspicious (Anders Fridén's Lo-Fi side project)

[ThePhobiac]

Creating a separate thread now that this has been officially announced.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been keeping our favorite Gothenburg gentlemen stuck at home, but that doesn't mean they're simply twiddling their thumbs. A surfeit of side-projects has streamed out of Ye Old Goteborg. While we wait for the debut masterpiece from The Tuboyz, this thread is about the latest electronic endeavor from Anders Fridén: If Anything, Suspicious.

The debut album, Lullabies for the Damned, will drop on December 3 of this year.





Links for teh investigatory:
Website
Insta
Spotify

 

[galvanized]

Creating a separate thread now that this has been officially announced.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been keeping our favorite Gothenburg gentlemen stuck at home, but that doesn't mean they're simply twiddling their thumbs. A surfeit of side-projects has streamed out of Ye Old Goteborg. While we wait for the debut masterpiece from The Tuboyz, this thread is about the latest electronic endeavor from Anders Fridén: If Anything, Suspicious.

The debut album, Lullabies for the Damned, will drop on December 3 of this year.





Links for teh investigatory:
Website
Insta
Spotify

Nice, anyone know if there will be another single before the album drops?

 

[ThePhobiac]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was it, since it'll be out next Friday.

 

[ThePhobiac]

The album is now out on the streaming service of your choice. Here's mine:



On my first listen and really enjoying it. The mood is pretty much the same throughout so far, but there's a nice variety in the textures and synths. "Celebrations of a Tragic End" is my favorite so far. Makes me wonder what could've come out of that Dead Man's Banquet electronic project between Anders and Niklas Sundin in the late 90's.

 

[galvanized]

Just remembered it came out today and added it, starting my first listen now. First 60 seconds are cool.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Listened through the whole thing.

A metal version of this is what should have come after Siren Charms, IMO.

I thought this was great. I'm very impressed. I think it works well as both an interesting ambient experience and background music. There are a lot of songs here that make me think while Anders has a really good grasp of mood and atmosphere, it doesn't always translate well to In Flames, so it's good to kind of hear it isolated into its own project.

"Celebrations of a Tragic End" is probably my favorite on here. I can hear that being the prototype of a really fantastic In Flames song. "Through the Tunnel," "Lost the Battle," and "Someone I Used to Know" are also very good.

 

[DE4life]

A mixed reaction on IF facebook. Plenty of positive comments, but also plenty of negative...








"What is Anders part in this?" uh, all of it?





I'm curious as to what these people who were expecting something different were thinking this was going to be, based off the first two tracks...

 

[eochaid]

Isn't it amazing that Anders has spent his time learning how to create electronic music instead of learning how to sing?

 

[galvanized]

I’ll take this over Passenger nu metal any day.

 

[ThePhobiac]

My hot take is that both Passenger and If Anything, Suspicious are good.

 

[DE4life]

Hard to compare the two as they are both completely diffeent genres of music. I quite liked the Passenger album though. In Reverse, Just the Same, Cirlces, I Die Slowly & Clowns are all solid tracks.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Yeah, him and Niclas had a certain songwriting chemistry that I thought really worked on that album. Those songs you mentioned are all great.

I meant more that, in the sense that they're both "Anders projects", I think they're both good. Dude has a pretty decent track record outside of IF, imo.

 

[TheJestersDoor]

I agree that both Passenger and this are good. I listened to the album and for what it is I really enjoy it. The thing that makes me laugh about the facebook comments is that people are confused what Anders has to do with it, as if a metal vocalist cannot produce any other sort of music. Not everyone is going to like this, and that's perfectly fine, everyones taste is different, but the music is literally not connected to In Flames in any way beyond it sharing a writer. If you went into it expecting another Passenger or something similar, of course you'd be dissapointed lol

 

[ThePhobiac]

The thing that makes me laugh about the facebook comments is that people are confused what Anders has to do with it, as if a metal vocalist cannot produce any other sort of music.

lol yeah the bewilderment is a little confusing. Plenty of other metal artists have put out electronic or ambient albums with no vocals whatsoever -- including some from Gothenburg during the pandemic -- so it's not like this is strange necessarily. Maybe it was just unexpected from Anders?

John Haughm's ambient album "Mosaic" is forty minutes of just atmospheric drone and imo it's even better than some of the albums from his main band. Wolves in the Throne Room also put out a pure ambient album a while back under their own name, not even as a side project.

The more the merrier, imo. I'd be interested to hear Martin Brandstrom do an album in this vein.