IN FLAMES Clayman Re-recorded 2020

[krofius]

Yeah he sounded fucking awesome on Moonshield the last couple years when they had it in their setlist, that growl fits perfectly, almost sounds better than original TJR vocals imo. That if anyone would be dope, a re-recording of Moonshield with that type of growl throughout.

 

[plintus]

I remember Anders bringing up singing from diaphragm (or whatever the technique is) a lot in old interviews when asked about his style. Too bad it took him only 15 years to actually get good at it. Or could be quality of recordings - I couldn't tell from the last time I saw them live just a short while ago, but recent live recordings sound great. Does justice to the original (i.e., "old") material.

I remember that. It leaked like 2 and a half or 3 months early -- I'm sure the boys were not happy about that one. How did you get Crawl Through Knives so early? Were you sexting with Jesper or something?

No one from the band was involved in the leak And I can't reveal my sources, I... know people.

He's got a lot of great moments like that, which is why as much as we all rag on him here I'd never call him a bad vocalist. Bad singer, yes, but not a bad vocalist or frontman.

Great way to put it. Used to be one of the funnest people on stage to watch. "We are from Sweden, we wrestle polar bears" is an absolute classic (don't @-me, that one is probably from late 90's).

I think it's the long, silky blonde hair and neck tats. What're you gonna do? You just can't compete with that, man.

Few can.

 

[plintus]

This is off topic, but just for the record: I don't own www.thequietplace.net any longer (didn't for quite some time by now). It's really funny to see that it's still up and is actually a fan site dedicated to the band (even if done... differently).

Took on a life of it's own, not bad.

 

[Pallbearer]

Bjorn's style of riffing and structuring songs in general has changed a fair bit since he stopped sharing that responsibility with Jesper.

Yeah he didn't really write complete IF songs before SOAPF. There is a CC era interview where Björn says neither Jesper nor himself usually write songs on their own, but work together in almost all of them.

In another interview (2011 or 2012) he was asked why Niclas didn't write anything on SOAPF. He answered he wanted to see if writing everything by himself would even work out, he honestly wasn't 100% sure in the beginning. Plus, he said Niclas might need some time to learn to distinguish "what's In Flames and what's Engel". In the end, so far the only album he's contributed to is Battles.

Looking at the album credits on Wikipedia, it seems five In Flames songs are credited to Jesper alone (1 on TJR and 4 on Whoracle), and none to Björn alone (edit: I mean before SOAPF)

It's also sometimes overlooked how big part Glenn was in getting the band going and creating the old IF sound. He co-wrote everything on LS and was involved in 6/10 of the TJR songs. (Subterranean writing credits aren't on Wiki)

P.S. Samlag still 30?

I wish... but I have a wife now :/

("samlag" = "intercourse")

 

[DE4life]

Ahh, Skateboarders and Shading. A real classic.

STYE rerecording 2024.

Great way to put it. Used to be one of the funnest people on stage to watch. "We are from Sweden, we wrestle polar bears" is an absolute classic (don't @-me, that one is probably from late 90's).

It's pretty cool to see his evolution over the years from a slightly awkward and kind of generic frontman to somebody brimming with confidence and having a good time. It's actually kind of amazing considering his attempts at singing

In another interview (2011 or 2012) he was asked why Niclas didn't write anything on SOAPF. He answered he wanted to see if writing everything by himself would even work out, he honestly wasn't 100% sure in the beginning. Plus, he said Niclas might need some time to learn to distinguish "what's In Flames and what's Engel".

And then they vomited out Siren Charms which sounded nothing like either band.

 

[eochaid]

It's pretty cool to see his evolution over the years from a slightly awkward and kind of generic frontman to somebody brimming with confidence and having a good time. It's actually kind of amazing considering his attempts at singing

It's amazing how he copies other frontmen on stage or has like two gestures.

From all of the bands I've seen live, Anders was one of the most boring frontmen. And his live vocal skills do not help at all.

I know that he has some.kind of sense of humour, but, it sounds as premade jokes. Not something that he comes with while on stage.

 

[DE4life]

The thing I like about Anders is he doesn't come across as a tryhard. So many metal vocalists just yell "PUT YUOR HORNS UP MUTHAFUCKAS" or "I WANNA SEE DAT PIT COME ON FUCKERS". Now that is boring and clichéd. Anders always comes across to me as genuine and just having a good time, Bjorn too. Every time I've seen him he's told some story that's kind of weird but also kind of endearing, usually specifically related to the event or the town. His back and forth banter with the crowd is always fun as well. When I went to see them last time he singled out some dick in the crowd who was yelling at the band to "hurry up" and ripped on him pretty hard most metal bands seem scared of the audience and barely interact, but Anders seems totally relaxed on stage and I appreciate that.

He probably says similar stuff at festivals but that's a different environment entirely.

 

[TheJestersDoor]

Honestly when they played Roundhouse last year the way he introduced Pinball Map was funny

 

[Pallbearer]

I've said this before but he once introduced Clayman with "this song is about festival toilet cubicles". I still don't understand the joke but it sounded so surreal I laughed anyway.

edit: one of my favourites is from the Club Citta bootleg, before The Jester Race.

"What do you want to hear?"
"YEAH!!!"
"We don't have any song called 'yeah'..."

 

[DE4life]

Would make more sense if he was describing the rerecording tbf

 

[eochaid]

The thing I like about Anders is he doesn't come across as a tryhard. So many metal vocalists just yell "PUT YUOR HORNS UP MUTHAFUCKAS" or "I WANNA SEE DAT PIT COME ON FUCKERS". Now that is boring and clichéd. Anders always comes across to me as genuine and just having a good time, Bjorn too. Every time I've seen him he's told some story that's kind of weird but also kind of endearing, usually specifically related to the event or the town. His back and forth banter with the crowd is always fun as well. When I went to see them last time he singled out some dick in the crowd who was yelling at the band to "hurry up" and ripped on him pretty hard most metal bands seem scared of the audience and barely interact, but Anders seems totally relaxed on stage and I appreciate that.

He probably says similar stuff at festivals but that's a different environment entirely.

Well, when I've seen him he was "I wanna see that pit" and "Jump the fuck up motherfuckes".

That's just my opinion, I see he struggling to interact with people if he has to bring more than two sentences.

Yes. He makes funny jokes. Sometimes. Cool. But he's just average. I guess that the thing is... You expect him to suck so much than then he does a decent show and everybody goes like "he was actually good" instead of "I was actually expecting for him to suck".

The same way that you expect Bjorn and Jesper in any list about influential metal musicians, no one expects to see him in a list of influential metal frontmen, or even in a list of best metal frontmen.

Let me clarify how I rate him live.

Vocal skills: 5.
Movement skills: 2
Interaction with the public, fluid speeches: 4.

This is how I see him. And I'm being generous with the vocal skills.

 

[DE4life]

I remember a clip from years ago where at the end of TTL Anders tried to back-kick the drumset for some reason and fell over I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

 

[Jester Slave]

Bo(a)rders and Shading - I thought it was a typo, and was quite surprised, because I haven't really met with one on Spotify yet (unlike torrents, where you can find gems like Delight and Anders), but seems like it was intentional. Which makes very little sense, though I never understood what the (old?) title supposed to mean anyway.

Screaming - To me, R2R STYE and CC are the only truly records he has. Those high-pitched, fluid screams he did were awesome, and I don't mean screams like at the end of Like You Better Dead. Basically he was always screaming during the verses, and that stopped with ASOP. ASOP was like talking mixed with a much lower sounding, monotone screaming. From SOAPF onwards he is just basically singing in a low tone.

Stage persona - I think Anders is great on the stage. I don't think it's a secret that he is quite introverted, just read his lyrics and watch his interviews; he is very self-conscious. But he vibes with the crowd a lot, warms up to them, interacts with them. He is very likeable.

 

[DE4life]

Bo(a)rders and Shading - I thought it was a typo, and was quite surprised, because I haven't really met with one on Spotify yet (unlike torrents, where you can find gems like Delight and Anders), but seems like it was intentional. Which makes very little sense, though I never understood what the (old?) title supposed to mean anyway.

Apparently Anders has some major fucking beef with Microsoft Word. And we all thought he was talking about a person.

 

[krofius]

I remember Anders bringing up singing from diaphragm (or whatever the technique is) a lot in old interviews when asked about his style. Too bad it took him only 15 years to actually get good at it. Or could be quality of recordings - I couldn't tell from the last time I saw them live just a short while ago, but recent live recordings sound great. Does justice to the original (i.e., "old") material.



No one from the band was involved in the leak And I can't reveal my sources, I... know people.



Great way to put it. Used to be one of the funnest people on stage to watch. "We are from Sweden, we wrestle polar bears" is an absolute classic (don't @-me, that one is probably from late 90's).



Few can.

I've always thought his growl has always been on point live and on album, at least since he started using it more frequently somewhere around STYE era.

 

[eochaid]

Stage persona - I think Anders is great on the stage. I don't think it's a secret that he is quite introverted, just read his lyrics and watch his interviews; he is very self-conscious. But he vibes with the crowd a lot, warms up to them, interacts with them. He is very likeable.

Ah yes. Anders is a great frontman. Is just that nobody in the metal music business has noticed that and he doesn't appear in lists in which even someone as boring as Mikael Akerfeldt appears.

I guess that, at least, he is in the list of the 100 best Swedish metal frontmen ever.

 

[galvanized]

they should be using it as an excuse to reach for those tracks that had killer guest solos (December Flower, Suburban Me etc) and actually do the songs justice for once. Even back in the TJR days in the 90s they would just skip the December Flower solo live.

Hell yeah, that is an awesome idea.

But they won’t due to ego. They are putting themselves before the band.

 

[galvanized]

It's also sometimes overlooked how big part Glenn was in getting the band going and creating the old IF sound. He co-wrote everything on LS and was involved in 6/10 of the TJR songs. (Subterranean writing credits aren't on Wiki)

Yeah, I noticed that before. And that’s why The Resistance was so disappointing to me. From the old credits you would have thought that putting these two guys in the same room again would make magic. But it didn’t

 

[DE4life]

The Resistance was definitely disappointing. I can remember a lot of people being hyped for their stuff purely based on who was involved, then it came out and it was boring as fuck.

 

[plintus]

I've always thought his growl has always been on point live and on album, at least since he started using it more frequently somewhere around STYE era.

It sounded deeper and more consistent in the last live videos I saw, but again, that could be the quality of the recordings. He used to be more all over the place. Not terrible, but OK, now it's noticeably better.

About him as a frontman: I used to see them on several dates every US tour back in the good olde days, some of those were across the coasts - I don't recall him ever repeating himself in telling same stories or pulling the same stunts on stage show after show. I mean, every band has inside jokes, and some things are going to happen again over time (like him messing with guitar/bass tuning knobs live once in a while), but few frontmen would sink that low in showmanship.

I've said this before but he once introduced Clayman with "this song is about festival toilet cubicles". I still don't understand the joke but it sounded so surreal I laughed anyway.

edit: one of my favourites is from the Club Citta bootleg, before The Jester Race.

"What do you want to hear?"
"YEAH!!!"
"We don't have any song called 'yeah'..."

Oh man, I remember that ramble about "pieces of clay" at some festival, was all, like, WTF?

"STANDA-WHAT???!!!"

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Apparently Anders has some major fucking beef with Microsoft Word. And we all thought he was talking about a person.

That actually came up all the way in 2004 when the record came out; conspiracy theory said they were paid by Microsoft.