IN FLAMES Clayman Re-recorded 2020

[DE4life]

I cannot say that I'm not surprised about your choice . Though you sound like the current state of At the Gates Singer buy with a better screaming.

In my defence I was asked to do that song, I didn't choose it myself I'm not sure if you mean the ATG comment as a good or a bad thing, but nowadays I'd probably sound more like a wailing gorilla and my throat would probably explode after about ten seconds. My youthful days are gone. Although it's funny now to think Anders was around my age when IF recorded STYE/CC. I have no idea how somebody like him with such bad screaming technique didn't completely wreck his vocal chords. I guess it must be genetics or good luck.

I also found this.



Yeah. Acoustic with electronics. They have reached a higher level of weirdness.

I have no comment other than no thanks.

 

[eochaid]

In my defence I was asked to do that song, I didn't choose it myself I'm not sure if you mean the ATG comment as a good or a bad thing, but nowadays I'd probably sound more like a wailing gorilla and my throat would probably explode after about ten seconds. My youthful days are gone. Although it's funny now to think Anders was around my age when IF recorded STYE/CC. I have no idea how somebody like him with such bad screaming technique didn't completely wreck his vocal chords. I guess it must be genetics or good luck.

With a better production you could pretend to be a professional .

And yeah. I guess that is mostly about genetics. I must add that I was never able to scream or growl.

 

[DE4life]

With a better production you could pretend to be a professional .

And yeah. I guess that is mostly about genetics. I must add that I was never able to scream or growl.

Coming from you my friend I will take it as high praise and be honoured

People think it's easy to do scream/growl, but it really isn't. Like anything it takes a lot of practice and effort, and it's high risk to your throat and vocal chords if you're doing it wrong. Even when you're doing it right it's similar to singing in that you have to get your breathing right, change pitch, and so on. Obviously there are terrible harsh vocalists out there who do none of this, but if you listen to the great ones - ATG, early IF, DT, Soilwork, Carcass, etc - it's all very controlled and managed. People outside of metal just hear it as someone screaming like a crazy person, but the effort that goes into the top level vocalists in this genre is impressive - to me, anyway.

 

[drawntoblack]

People think it's easy to do scream/growl, but it really isn't. Like anything it takes a lot of practice and effort, and it's high risk to your throat and vocal chords if you're doing it wrong.

This is why I don't understand all this en masse praise for Anders incorporating growls recently. He is doing it out of necessity and he isn't even doing them properly. They aren't deep growls from a diaphragm, they are basic fry vocals.

 

[DE4life]

When I saw them in Norwich Anders was growling in what I would consider a "good" way, from the diaphram and as a result his voice stayed strong from the first song to the last.

When I watched the vid from December 2019 in Mexico he was doing it the wrong and right way- usually the wrong way when it was in place of clean vocals. As a result by the end of the concert his voice became ragged - as seen in "Burn" where he sounds utterly terrible.

 

[Simo Pumba]

Yeah we're a bunch of weird and crazy motherfuckers, but we're harmless really



You've got some good power in your voice bro, you just need to learn to control it a bit more. It's kind of difficult with screaming/growling but it comes with practice. Also what do you use to edit your vocals into the songs? I'd recommend getting something like Adobe Audition if you want to have the vocals integrate more into the track rather than just be pushed over the top of it.

It's been a long time since I did this kind of thing, but I can vaguely remember from my days of using Cool Edit 2 & Adobe Audition I would record a vocal track and have one panning slightly to the left and another panning slightly to the right, with one of the two a slight decibel lower. Then I'd merge the two together and edit them into the final mix, adjusting the volume to try and fit into the music, also adjusting each part to try and match the instrumental cues as best as possible. To be honest it's not easy when you are layering a vocal track over an instrumental track that's already been completed - in a professional mix the vocals tend to be mixed in with the bass line or in its own channel (which is why a lot of the time if you choose to remove the bass line in audio editing software it will remove the vocals as well). Vocals layered over the top of a pre-made track will always sound slightly off, but you can get it sounding half-way decent with some time put into the editing. Part of the reason for having two vocal tracks panned left and right is that it helps it sound less flat in the final mix. I can't say it worked for everything I did but I got some OK results with it. I could only ever get so far with a £30 microphone and out of date audio editing software



Jeez man, this was a long time ago I think @A88 heard some of my stuff years back and was like "bro, you're like early era Anders, Mikael Stanne and Michael Kiske all rolled into one ", but you know, that was just his opinion. I'm pretty sure Krofi-kun heard some of my covers on YT back in the day as well, in fact I remember him commenting on one of them - a positive comment, so it must have been before I became an asshole but I haven't touched that stuff in years and no way I could do it nowadays. I probably still have some stuff on an old hard drive somewhere, I'll do some digging.



For the record I was joking about SC and Battles but yes, the best SC tracks are the non-metal ones, which sums that album up. The bonus tracks are both good, and should have been on the album.

Thanks mate, I try : I'm not very experienced with screaming and dem growlz, my only practice really is when I sing a song every now and then. It's a lot of fun though so might start practicing some more to learn it properly. Also I normally just use a freeware called openshot or something to smash the tracks together. Some years ago I had something called Magix music maker which was better for editing, but never used any proper professional tools and don't know anything about it. Will check out that Adobe Audition though, thanks for the recommendation

Listened to your track and you are pretty fucking good! Great screams and growls, and as eochaid pointed out it's kinda reminiscent to Tomas Lindberg. I find that both him and Anders has this special "weakness" in their voice when they scream or growl which just adds to it all, love it

Yeah man, after Battles I kinda felt that IF would be better off if they just left metal behind as they sound better and more passionate with their ballads and more rocky tracks. Alot of it comes down to production of course, a song like Through my Eyes for instance just sounds weird. Or Sober and Irrelevent back on ASOP already, would have sounded so much better with a rawer production. ITM was a big improvement though
Makes me remember the time before ASOP which was the highlight of my IF fanboyism and honestly, when the mirrors truth EP was released I genuinely believed it was just demo tracks. The songs where good but I just could not understand how in flames could ever sounds like that. It wasn't only soft, but the guitar sound especially was pretty shit. I kinda had to learn to enjoy it, and in the end ASOP is a good album with many good songs, but the production does let it down

 

[Simo Pumba]

This just about sums up how I feel about it too. Also welcome! to our small, weird little community

Thanks man

 

[Simo Pumba]

I cannot say that I'm not surprised about your choice . Though you sound like the current state of At the Gates Singer buy with a better screaming.

I also found this.



Yeah. Acoustic with electronics. They have reached a higher level of weirdness.

It works well though, I like this acoustic version

 

[eochaid]

It works well though, I like this acoustic version

I don't. I don't think that pre recorded electronics fit well with acoustic. Or any electronics. It sounds artificial and forced.

 

[DE4life]

Thanks mate, I try : I'm not very experienced with screaming and dem growlz, my only practice really is when I sing a song every now and then. It's a lot of fun though so might start practicing some more to learn it properly. Also I normally just use a freeware called openshot or something to smash the tracks together. Some years ago I had something called Magix music maker which was better for editing, but never used any proper professional tools and don't know anything about it. Will check out that Adobe Audition though, thanks for the recommendation

I started doing some covers for fun in 2005 or 2006, I think. I was really bad though I was trying to copy Anders but I sucked. It took two or three years before I found a comfortable style that didn't sound terrible. I really enjoyed those times though, I met a lot of really cool people and was lucky enough to do some collab stuff with some awesome musicians, even creating some original tracks. The production on all of them sucks, because it's homebrew, but it's still nice to have some original MDM stuff with my vocals and lyrics on it. I had a lot of fun, although my neighbours probably thought I was insane.

Using professional programs can be a bit daunting at first as there are so many options, but I always enjoyed tinkering with things and seeing how the different effects and settings worked. If it's something you're interested in I'd definitely recommend it.

Listened to your track and you are pretty fucking good! Great screams and growls, and as eochaid pointed out it's kinda reminiscent to Tomas Lindberg. I find that both him and Anders has this special "weakness" in their voice when they scream or growl which just adds to it all, love it

Thanks bro, that was actually the last track I ever put vocals down to, in 2013. After that I "retired" an amazing career. I agree with you on Lindberg/early-Anders style of screaming, it's very unique and is by far my favourite style of harsh vocal. With almost all of those vocalists it was impossible to keep up long-term though, as I really don't think there's any safe way to perform that style of vocal - possibly if it was only in studio, but not with touring as well.

Yeah man, after Battles I kinda felt that IF would be better off if they just left metal behind as they sound better and more passionate with their ballads and more rocky tracks. Alot of it comes down to production of course, a song like Through my Eyes for instance just sounds weird. Or Sober and Irrelevent back on ASOP already, would have sounded so much better with a rawer production. ITM was a big improvement though
Makes me remember the time before ASOP which was the highlight of my IF fanboyism and honestly, when the mirrors truth EP was released I genuinely believed it was just demo tracks. The songs where good but I just could not understand how in flames could ever sounds like that. It wasn't only soft, but the guitar sound especially was pretty shit. I kinda had to learn to enjoy it, and in the end ASOP is a good album with many good songs, but the production does let it down

I can remember expressing similar sentiments around the SC/Battles period, that if they want to move away from metal they should just do it, rather than the half-in/half-out stance they seemed to be taking. Obviously with ITM they've shifted back a little more into the metal arena, which is nice. I have no idea what to expect from their next release though. It could easily be another SC/Battles, especially if they are still working with Benson - and unfortunately I am sure they will be.

Agree on the ASOP production completely. The guitar tone is shit. It baffles me that Jesper of all people was and still is happy with it, but I guess it's all opinions at the end of the day. If any album needs a remastering it is ASOP - although I don't think remastering alone would be able to do anything about the guitar tone. It would probably require an entire rerecording, including vocals, so... we'll probably just have to make do with the album as it is. Plenty of potential, but sadly mostly ruined by the production and vocals.

 

[Sierota]

I always liked this cover. It's like Bad Religion doing In Flames.

 

[DE4life]

I actually quite like No Fun At All, as you say they remind me of Bad Religion who are fantastic. I like the instrumental side of the Episode 666 cover but the vocal rhythm always sounds weird to me, and I can't really get past it. I feel like IF did a better job covering Strong & Smart - although I do like the original version as well.

 

[Sierota]

I actually quite like No Fun At All, as you say they remind me of Bad Religion who are fantastic. I like the instrumental side of the Episode 666 cover but the vocal rhythm always sounds weird to me, and I can't really get past it. I feel like IF did a better job covering Strong & Smart - although I do like the original version as well.

I can't think of many 'professional' bands who've done In Flames covers.

 

[Sierota]

I guess this could count as a Bullet Ride cover. Haha

 

[Sierota]

So, when was the first time everyone saw In Flames live? Mine was with Iced Earth in Chicago in 2002. Both bands were at the height of their powers. Iced Earth was promoting Horror Show and In Flames was still promoting Clayman.

 

[DE4life]

I don't think there are many covers of IF, not by well-known bands anyway. I know Elvenking did a cover of Pinball Map on a handful of live shows in the mid-2000s, but to my knowledge they never recorded a studio version.

My first IF show was on Nov 20, 2005 in Cambridge. They were supporting Motorhead. Setlist was as below.



STYE would have been the most recent album out at the time.

 

[Sierota]

I remember reading about that tour. It was a strange pairing but Motorhead have toured with just about everyone. What kind of reception did In Flames get?

This was my setlist. It's pretty awesome. Not sure how to copy setlists though.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/in-flames/2002/metro-chicago-il-43d34f8f.html

 

[eochaid]

I don't think there are many covers of IF, not by well-known bands anyway. I know Elvenking did a cover of Pinball Map on a handful of live shows in the mid-2000s, but to my knowledge they never recorded a studio version.

My first IF show was on Nov 20, 2005 in Cambridge. They were supporting Motorhead. Setlist was as below.

View attachment 25337

STYE would have been the most recent album out at the time.

Which is interesting because there are several well known bands who have if as an influence, Trivium comes to mind. But none of them had made a cover version.

 

[Sierota]

Which is interesting because there are several well known bands who have if as an influence, Trivium comes to mind. But none of them had made a cover version.

Many of those 2000's metalcore bands were influenced by In Flames, but yeah, there weren't any covers AFAIK. In Flames toured with a whole bunch of them though. I saw them in 2003 and they had Unearth and Zao opening. I saw them on the Come Clarity tour in 2006 and they had Zao and Trivium.

 

[DE4life]

I remember reading about that tour. It was a strange pairing but Motorhead have toured with just about everyone. What kind of reception did In Flames get?

This was my setlist. It's pretty awesome. Not sure how to copy setlists though.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/in-flames/2002/metro-chicago-il-43d34f8f.html

Yeah that's a pretty awesome setlist! You definitely saw them at a good time. I literally just used the snip tool in windows to capture the image and pasted it into my post, nothing fancy

IF got a decent reception from what I remember, there were a good amount of people there to see them. They sounded good, too. It was cool to see Touch of Red live, as that one isn't played much. In fact according to setlist.fm it hasn't been played since 2011.

I saw a better setlist the next year when they came to London for the Come Clarity tour.



Scream was the only song they played that night that I disliked. I believe this was also the only tour they have ever played "Vacuum" on, which is one of my favourites off Come Clarity.