IN FLAMES new album being released by the end of 2016

Old but gold... CC review.

The director yells “That’s a wrap!” on the set for the In Flames’s video Touch of Red, and in the scorching California heat Bjorn Gelotte thumbs the kill switch of the chopper he was lent for the making of the video. Stepping off the bike, he spots Anders Friden bopping away to a tune on his i-pod amidst a crowd of camera crew busily dismantling recording equipment. While standing beside the bike whose radiator already began crick-cracking from cooling, he decides to confront Anders with something that had been on his mind for a while. He walks towards Anders simultaneously dodging the busy camera crew and hollers “Hey Anders…Aaanders….ANDERS!!”

Startled, Anders turns to Bjorn and removes his earphones, “Oh damn! Sorry man, just listening to some tunes. Hey, have you tried those fucking salmon wraps over there?! Holy shit they’re awesome!”

“Ya they were pretty good, look Anders…”

“Christ! Remember when we recorded the video for Only For The Weak!? All we got were some lousy sandwiches and beer. Heck, remember when we recorded the video for Pinball Map! Daniel was sitting on a fucking tree drumming on a branch and I was spinning like a moron on some damn rocks looking like a retarded Jesus. Now look! You’re driving awesome motorcycles and… well… Jesper is getting free tattoos”

“Well, Anders, that’s what I wanted to ask you. Don’t you think this is a little much? I mean, this may be awesome and all, but we’re still a Metal band, and… this feels like we’re on the set of a rap video”.

Anders removes his sun glasses un-shielding his perplexed look, “What do you mean?” he says.

“I mean I feel like we’re maybe straying a little. When we recorded Lunar Strain the idea of touring outside Sweden blew our minds, and now look, we’re in L.A recording videos with gorgeous women and touring the world over and over.”

“Dude, I think you’ve inhaled too much exhaust from that motorcycle you’ve been riding all afternoon. C’mon, let’s go get more of that salmon befo…”

Bjorn interrupts, “ No, no…listen, I’m trying to say that the success is awesome and all… but I miss writing solos, and on Soundtrack we decided to keep it more simple. You laugh about Daniel drumming on a tree, but our last album sounded like he was drumming on a tin can. All I’m saying, Anders, is that we may have put something aside in our music that we shouldn’t have… I kind of miss writing nice solos and, shit, I bet Jesper misses them even more than I do.”

Though listening attentively, Anders scratches a nagging itch between his dreadlocks and stares at his feet, and says, “Ya… I sort of know where you’re getting at.”

“I remember reading reviews about other bands that said 'Oh this acoustic guitar sounds like In Flames' and 'Oh this melody is such an In Flames ripoff', and now I go and read a review for Soundtrack to Your Escape, and some cocksuckers on this website called metalreviews.com have the nerve to compare us to St-Anger. Like what the fuck is that!? I’m not saying we should do another Jester Race or Colony or anything like that… I just think we should remember the old days, the At The Gates we used to rock out to, and the crusty sandwiches we ate on the set for Only For the Weak that made us write good music when we decide to record our next one”.

Anders lifts his head and stares into the distance over Bjorn’s shoulders. “Yeah,” he says, and then looks at him in the eyes, “you have a good point, a very good one in fact. Should we get Peter and tell him about this?”

Bjorn laughs and says “No, I think he’s still lathering the Hummer with the chicks… let him finish first.”
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I was listening to the album again this morning, and to be honest, The Truth is probably one of the more creative tracks on Battles. I still don't think it should have been released on a full album (might have been acceptable on an EP) but objectively it's not a bad song. It's just a terrible In Flames song.

Standalone, the Truth gets a 6/10 from me. As part of the album, still a 0/10 because it shouldn't be there. That's how it goes.

This album suffers a bit from R2R syndrome, where a lot of the nice guitar melodies are buried in the mix. You can hear them easier in Battles than R2R, but you're stil left wondering they aren't higher in the mix.

Anyway, I tenatively raise my Battles score to 6/10 and put it level with ASOP. SC remains wayyyyy down the bottom.
 
Makes sense he'd advertise Battles. He likes Nickelback, after all.

=P

"Battles" and "Underneath My Skin" are growers for sure. The former is just silly and fun. The bridge in the latter makes the song for me. Not that they're great, but I don't feel the impulse to skip them when they come up. So they're about on par with "Through My Eyes".

"Here Until Forever", "Save Me" and the two bonus tracks are the only ones I don't like at this point.

Among the non-singles, I'm thinking "Drained" is my favorite overall, with "In My Room" and "Before I Fall" rounding out the top three.
 
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shad0w__ said:
No he doesnt.
Click to expand...
Unless you skipped the first part of the review, he does.

"They're definitely not the same group they were back in the early nineties when they started their musical journey. THis is all stuff that we know. What's amazing though about this is that in 2016 people, metal fans will still approach this album with that slim bit of hope that they returned back to the form that they had on whoracle or the jester race..."

Now, do you really want to be dishonest?
 
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eochaid said:
Unless you skipped the first part of the review, he does.

"They're definitely not the same group they were back in the early nineties when they started their musical journey. THis is all stuff that we know. What's amazing though about this is that in 2016 people, metal fans will still approach this album with that slim bit of hope that they returned back to the form that they had on whoracle or the jester race..."

Now, do you really want to be dishonest?
Click to expand...

Its not bullshit, just look at any social media or metal website and you'll see the "i've stopped listening after Clayman" whiners. I'm not saying its wrong or right way of thinking, but its a fact.

Edit: now that I remember, even Jesper jokes about "going back to the roots" it in the Asop making of videos
 
shad0w__ said:
Its not bullshit, just look at any social media or metal website and you'll see the "i've stopped listening after Clayman" whiners. I'm not saying its wrong or right way of thinking, but its a fact.
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What's a fact is that all of the apologiests start with a "they changed, they're not melodeath anymore". Well, that's a bullshit and lame excuse for a positive review. There is far more people asking for a good album than asking for a back to the roots album. But some people, just don't want to see it because it breaks their happily ever after IFWT world.
 
I was actually surprised at how many people are still complaining they aren't making another TJR/Whoracle/Colony/Clayman. There are clearly a lot of idiots around.

Anders and Bjorn's modern version of any of the classic albums would be absolutely horrifying. I hope they never even try.
 
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eochaid said:
What's a fact is that all of the apologiests start with a "they changed, they're not melodeath anymore". Well, that's a bullshit and lame excuse for a positive review. There is far more people asking for a good album than asking for a back to the roots album. But some people, just don't want to see it because it breaks their happily ever after IFWT world.
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I agree with you and if you watch the review fully, you'll see that he makes a similar point. He says that the album is competent, better than SC but far off from soapf which he considers to be a good album
 
shad0w__ said:
I agree with you and if you watch the review fully, you'll see that he makes a similar point. He says that the album is competent, better than SC but far off from soapf which he considers to be a good album
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As I do. But, really, I'm tired of this kind of starts. I won't read or listen or watch any new review that starts with "they're not melodeath anymore", be it a positive or negative review.
 
DE4life said:
I was actually surprised at how many people are still complaining they aren't making another TJR/Whoracle/Colony/Clayman. There are clearly a lot of idiots around.

Anders and Bjorn's modern version of any of the classic albums would be absolutely horrifying. I hope they never even try.
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I don't think that there are those much asking for that. From what I've read, there are some people complainign about this, but there are also a lot of people that, when reading negative comments, naturally asume that the person behind the comments wants a Jester Race part II.
 
I hope you don't have that bad reading comprehension eochaid. That's 2 ½ weeks making the DEMO's for the songs, not the actual writing process. Björn wrote most of the guitars by himself before they went to LA and created the demo tracks.

They had not toured for a year before Knotfest so they had plenty of time to write stuff.

Btw pretty cool pic shared by Björn
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMqeOcPDtJK/

Also just read Glenn's opinion of the album, he said he loved it, ''I'm on track 11 and I can only say damn what a good album, 11 choruses that really strike and the music is awesome''

Hard to translate literally cause there are Swedish slangwords and such but that's the jest of it.
 
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eochaid said:
Unless you skipped the first part of the review, he does.

"They're definitely not the same group they were back in the early nineties when they started their musical journey. THis is all stuff that we know. What's amazing though about this is that in 2016 people, metal fans will still approach this album with that slim bit of hope that they returned back to the form that they had on whoracle or the jester race..."

Now, do you really want to be dishonest?
Click to expand...
Based on this, he himself isn't saying they returned to form. He's saying people still go into the album hoping it is.
 
krofius said:
I hope you don't have that bad reading comprehension eochaid. That's 2 ½ weeks making the DEMO's for the songs, not the actual writing process. Björn wrote most of the guitars by himself before they went to LA and created the demo tracks.
Click to expand...
So they actually made demos for this record? I thought the demos were just SC?
 
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