In Flames New Album being released in Q2 of 2014 thread

[A88]

The problem you seem to have is Anders vocals not the actual music, not to the same extent at least. All of In Flames records have been guitar driven. There's super many good riffs IMO on ASOP & SOAPF. Fear is the Weakness is probably the best example in my eyes.

The problem I have is general songwriting, Anders vocals, vocal melodies domination over guitar content, and production. Even when they do come out with good riff or two, or nice little melody, it is pushed in the background.

So far, I'm yet to hear good riff or melody out of SC. I'm not really convinced Bjorn has it in him anymore. His riffs were mostly sub-par IMO (even on SOAPF).

Construct is not really guitar driven it's more keyboard and atmosphere, and it's mostly the same or a similar repetitive chug riff found throughout many songs on the album. And it's not about being comfortable with his vocals, it's about it being repetitive. Depends on the band though. Gojira, one of my favorite bands, has had the same vocals all the time though but it doesn't bore me.

I agree on Construct not being guitar driven album, but I still like it. All the elements together work really well (WATV was far less successful on that field) and that is what matters to me, despite me not being the greatest fan of industrial sound or riffs and chords DT prefers on last two albums.

So, even if I can't put my finger on one hit song, I enjoy the album as whole.

And I really like to listen whole albums, not just hit songs.

And trust me, Anders is more than content with his vocals, otherwise he wouldn't try new stuff each album and try to improve his vocals (in his opinion).

Well, it is his right to do whatever he wants to. But it sounds worse to my ears. What's the point of doing 20 layers of vocals you can't possibly pull of live? Guy can't sing. Simple. Sorry.

And I would say Mikaels vocals IS basically the same. He didn't use his death growl a lot in in the old days, but his raspy scream is 95% the same. Just compare Construct and Lunar Strain. Obviously there's a slight difference because he's aged 20 years and your voice doesn't stay the exact same pitch, but the screaming technique is the exact same. But his cleans have improved indeed, his cleans are awesome.

I see difference in his growls (cleans are much different indeed). But even if it's the same stuff, why change something that works perfectly in studio and live? Also, I appreciate how he sings with full conviction and emotion.

I see you hate ASOP a lot but I don't really understand why unless it's because you absolutely despise the vocals, cause there's awesome melodic guitar riffs in almost all songs. How can you not dig the guitars in the chorus of The Mirrors Truth for example? Or the tremolo riff in Sober & Irrelevants chorus? And the song Tilt has old-school IF riffs in at least half the song.

Their ability to create solid catchy riffs whether it be the intro of Jotun or Drenched in Fear doesn't matter. That's what got me into IF in the first place.

Well, I would not really call them awesome melodic guitar riffs, but there are some good elements, I agree. With different songwriting, different guitar sound, and different vocals... who knows.

Bonus tracks are far better than core ASOP songs.

Their albums up until Reroute to Remain were guitar-driven, but from R2R onwards the vocal melodies took centre stage and nothing has changed since then. Every so often the guitars get a chance to shine, but by and large the songs In Flames produce are now driven by vocal melodies, particularly in the chorus sections.

100% true.

 

[Jester313]

DT's screams have changed a little bit and not just recently. I feel that after the first few albums, he's become a little easier to understand with his screams. I like all of DT's albums a lot, and I think The Living Infinite is one of Soilwork's best. Talking about Anders being whiny now with his lyrics, or subject matter, doesn't bother me. What bothers me (and this wasn't really on SOAPF except for the second verse of The Puzzle) is when he doesn't put any clever thoughts into his lyrics. ASOP was pretty much that. It's not what he's singing about necessarily, it's more that he's just so straightforward with it. But look at Clayman which is a lot about personal struggle, yet he was able to make just about every line extremely interesting. Look at Since the Day It All Came Down from Insomnium; a song/album about losing one's wife yet there are so many metaphors and imagery. I know I just rambled about a few things, hopefully it makes some sense.

 

[A88]

Insomnium - good example, both musically and lyrically. Though I dislike some of the newer lyrics (Ephemeral).

 

[krofius]

The three leaked/released songs are so far more reminiscent of ASOP than SOAPF, and for a lot of people brought back into the fold by SOAPF that is a massive concern.

This is seriously don't understand. Through Oblivion sounds like nothing they've done before. Rusted Nail, same thing there, except for the intro which sounds similar to Sounds of a Playground Fading (the song). Everything's Gone, obviously, doesn't sound like anything previous either with the death metal riff and unique chorus.

If anything it sounds closer to SOAPF than anything else, literally can't hear any resemblance to the music on ASOP and the three new songs, what do you specifically mean that is reminiscent of ASOP?

Though about the lyrics that's nothing no one can deny, they are definitely more straightforward and easier to understand now. I think Anders stated that he started writing this style because he wanted people to be able to relate and understand the lyrics better, he said not many people understood what they were about before with all the weird metaphors. I definitely prefer the lyrics on the older albums, Colony probably my favorite as you can see by my sig. But it was Niklas Sundin from DT who wrote all the lyrics on TJR, all the lyrics on Whoracle except for some verses on Episode 666 that was a translation/analyzation of lyrics Anders wrote in Swedish, and on Colony Niklas translated 4 or 5 songs as well. So Anders didn't really write his OWN lyrics until Colony, and Clayman was the first album he wrote everything by himself. So even while he and Niklas collaborated with the lyrical concepts and song titles, it wasn't really him that actually penned the awesome lyrics down.

 

[Jester313]

Yeah, but he wrote Clayman on his own. And I thought Niklas only really just translated. Either way, Anders wrote Clayman on his own. Phenomenal lyrics.

A88 - I still enjoy their newer lyrics from One for Sorrow, though they are easily more straightforward. I feel their newest album brought back some of the better lyrics but there are still some songs like Ephemeral that are more simple. Although, I still really like how that song's lyrics are written despite being simple.

 

[krofius]

Yeah, but he wrote Clayman on his own. And I thought Niklas only really just translated. Either way, Anders wrote Clayman on his own. Phenomenal lyrics.

A88 - I still enjoy their newer lyrics from One for Sorrow, though they are easily more straightforward. I feel their newest album brought back some of the better lyrics but there are still some songs like Ephemeral that are more simple. Although, I still really like how that song's lyrics are written despite being simple.

No Niklas actually wrote it. I asked Niklas myself a couple years ago and he told me what I just wrote. Clayman has phenomenal lyrics indeed, Bullet Ride probably has my favorite lyrics, the chorus part is awesome.

 

[DE4life]

This is seriously don't understand. Through Oblivion sounds like nothing they've done before. Rusted Nail, same thing there, except for the intro which sounds similar to Sounds of a Playground Fading (the song). Everything's Gone, obviously, doesn't sound like anything previous either with the death metal riff and unique chorus.

If anything it sounds closer to SOAPF than anything else, literally can't hear any resemblance to the music on ASOP and the three new songs, what do you specifically mean that is reminiscent of ASOP?

I think you've taken what I said a little too literally. I didn't mean any of the songs sound exactly like the songs off ASOP, but rather the uninspired nature of the songs and the shitty vocals remind me of ASOP. I thought the vocals on ASOP were, to be honest, awful. The growls were half-assed and the cleans were massively overproduced to hide the fact Anders can't sing.

Not sure what you mean by Everything's Gone having a unique chorus though... it's exactly the same "big chorus" they do in almost every song since R2R as far as I can remember but I did only hear the song in shitty quality and have forgotten most of it now so I might be talking bollocks there. The verses I remember being boring as fuck either way.

The lyrics discussion is interesting. Most metalheads don't give a fuck about lyrics, but for me they can make or break a song or a band. Personally if a set of lyrics suck I find it difficult to take a band seriously, whilst awesome lyrics take a song to the next level.

Niklas' influence on TJR/Whoracle is obvious. My favourite album of all time in terms of lyrics is DT's Skydancer, which Sundin wrote the majority of lyrics for. The lyrics on that album are beautiful, though the music doesn't quite reach the same level. Wonderful wordsmanship though, and you can see that influence on TJR as well.

Whoracle is a strange one for me though. The lyrics seem to be far more fragmented and difficult to interpret. The metaphors on TJR are clever but easily understandable, whilst some of Whoracle is close to total gibberish. Especially Jester Script Transfigured - though ironically that song does contain my favourite IF lyric line - "We've only seen outlines of the beginning/At its core, the slowly moving raptor/Will make the very notion of hell/Seem celestial in comparison". That shit is incredible and fits in so well with the crescendo of the music. It was that type of incredible artistry that made me fall in love with In Flames' music when I first heard it.

In terms of the lyrics Anders wrote, Colony is my favourite. I believe he had some help from Niklas on this one in translating, even though the lyrics themselves were all Anders? Either way the lyrics for all these songs are very powerful and unlike TJR/Whoracle very understandable on a personal level as well as an abstract level. Clayman is also very good, though sometimes the words are a little muddled, possibly a consequence of Anders writing the whole thing by himself. For a non-native English speaker it's still an excellent set of lyrics.

R2R is where the lyrical content, for me, started to go downhill a bit. Everything became a lot simpler. There are still metaphors there, but they aren't as complex or clever as previous songs. It fits with the stripped down vibe of the album though and the words flow better, imo, than they did on Clayman, even if they are inferior in terms of quality.

STYE doesn't have the worst lyrics in the world but there are signs of shitty things to come with lame lines such as "I like you better dead, and I'm better off alone" and "Drown the monster, make all bad dreams go away". Still some good stuff on STYE but a step down.

Come Clarity kinda continues in that vein, though the quality of lyrics on this album is a slight improvement to STYE as far as I'm concerned.

ASOP, however, takes an absolute fucking nosedive as far as lyrical quality goes. It absolutely ruins some of the songs. I don't really need to repeat the often ridiculed chorus of Disconnected, but there was a lot of crappy lyrics scattered all over this album and Anders sounded like a whiny emo bitch on a lot of these tracks. This was the lowest point for In Flames lyrically, imo.

SOAPF was a step back in the right direction though. The chorus to the title track is absolutely superb, and there are nice lines throughout the album. There are still some shitty lines evident ("And I don't care what you think!!/Or maybe I do?!") but on the whole a huge improvement from ASOP.

Can't really comment on SC at this point but from what we've heard so far I'm expecting a step down in quality, which would be a shame. Anders' hundred and one plans to get peace of mind from the last album clearly didn't work, as he's still talking about it in Rusted Nail...

 

[A88]

Oh, I fuckin' love Jester script transfigured.

But yeah, lyrics for that song are combination of awesome and gibberish.

 

[DE4life]

Worlds Within the Margin is probably the most fucked up song lyric-wise on Whoracle... good luck figuring out what that's about

 

[Jester313]

"In the kinetic energy of a, moving fist / Lies the birth machine of a, parallel, universe". To me the chorus always meant something like the energy spent on fighting one another could be used instead to find better solutions with one another and make a better world. Now, does that fit in with the context of the rest of the song? I have no fuckin' idea.

 

[Jester313]

Maybe this? I found on a lyrics site:

I've got an idea of what it may be about, its actually an interesting philosophical concept that has interested me for a while now.
The song seems to describe the infinite possibilities of every outcome, and every possible course of fate spawning an entirely new universe. In this concept, there are as many "parallel universes" as there are choices and occurences ever made in this and every other universe, thereby stretching to pretty much an infinite number.
The lyrics are just poetic illustrations of this point, such as the raindrop moving the position of the leaf slightly. There will then be a universe where the raindrop hit the leaf, and a universe where the raindrop didnt hit the leaf. The "buds abloom on all directions" may be a descroption of the sprawling paths of fate resulting from an occurence, each resulting in its own parellel universe.
In this concept, everything in the universe is therefore a "birth machine", creating new worlds whenever it interacts with its environment, as described in
"In the kinetic energy of a moving fist
lies a birth-machine for a paralell universe"


But now, does that fit in with the concept of the rest of the album? I see we are getting a little off-topic here.

 

[DE4life]

The song probably is about the butterfly effect... but I dunno what dormant dictator's semen has to do with that

 

[Jester313]

The song probably is about the butterfly effect... but I dunno what dormant dictator's semen has to do with that

Haha. Probably saying the dormant dictator is some young person who will grow up to be a dictator. And then his semen. So, his offspring further down the line will affect/change us or something.

 

[DE4life]

For anyone stumbling upon this thread who's never heard the real In Flames... click here

 

[Jester313]

Can I just say that I also miss the old artwork such as Whoracle?

 

[DE4life]

The last album artwork I really liked was probably Reroute. Colony had an amazing cover as well.

 

[krofius]

Who cares if we are offtopic. There's no moderator lol.

I think you've taken what I said a little too literally. I didn't mean any of the songs sound exactly like the songs off ASOP, but rather the uninspired nature of the songs and the shitty vocals remind me of ASOP. I thought the vocals on ASOP were, to be honest, awful. The growls were half-assed and the cleans were massively overproduced to hide the fact Anders can't sing.

Not sure what you mean by Everything's Gone having a unique chorus though... it's exactly the same "big chorus" they do in almost every song since R2R as far as I can remember but I did only hear the song in shitty quality and have forgotten most of it now so I might be talking bollocks there. The verses I remember being boring as fuck either way.

The lyrics discussion is interesting. Most metalheads don't give a fuck about lyrics, but for me they can make or break a song or a band. Personally if a set of lyrics suck I find it difficult to take a band seriously, whilst awesome lyrics take a song to the next level.

Niklas' influence on TJR/Whoracle is obvious. My favourite album of all time in terms of lyrics is DT's Skydancer, which Sundin wrote the majority of lyrics for. The lyrics on that album are beautiful, though the music doesn't quite reach the same level. Wonderful wordsmanship though, and you can see that influence on TJR as well.

Whoracle is a strange one for me though. The lyrics seem to be far more fragmented and difficult to interpret. The metaphors on TJR are clever but easily understandable, whilst some of Whoracle is close to total gibberish. Especially Jester Script Transfigured - though ironically that song does contain my favourite IF lyric line - "We've only seen outlines of the beginning/At its core, the slowly moving raptor/Will make the very notion of hell/Seem celestial in comparison". That shit is incredible and fits in so well with the crescendo of the music. It was that type of incredible artistry that made me fall in love with In Flames' music when I first heard it.

In terms of the lyrics Anders wrote, Colony is my favourite. I believe he had some help from Niklas on this one in translating, even though the lyrics themselves were all Anders? Either way the lyrics for all these songs are very powerful and unlike TJR/Whoracle very understandable on a personal level as well as an abstract level. Clayman is also very good, though sometimes the words are a little muddled, possibly a consequence of Anders writing the whole thing by himself. For a non-native English speaker it's still an excellent set of lyrics.

R2R is where the lyrical content, for me, started to go downhill a bit. Everything became a lot simpler. There are still metaphors there, but they aren't as complex or clever as previous songs. It fits with the stripped down vibe of the album though and the words flow better, imo, than they did on Clayman, even if they are inferior in terms of quality.

STYE doesn't have the worst lyrics in the world but there are signs of shitty things to come with lame lines such as "I like you better dead, and I'm better off alone" and "Drown the monster, make all bad dreams go away". Still some good stuff on STYE but a step down.

Come Clarity kinda continues in that vein, though the quality of lyrics on this album is a slight improvement to STYE as far as I'm concerned.

ASOP, however, takes an absolute fucking nosedive as far as lyrical quality goes. It absolutely ruins some of the songs. I don't really need to repeat the often ridiculed chorus of Disconnected, but there was a lot of crappy lyrics scattered all over this album and Anders sounded like a whiny emo bitch on a lot of these tracks. This was the lowest point for In Flames lyrically, imo.

SOAPF was a step back in the right direction though. The chorus to the title track is absolutely superb, and there are nice lines throughout the album. There are still some shitty lines evident ("And I don't care what you think!!/Or maybe I do?!") but on the whole a huge improvement from ASOP.

Can't really comment on SC at this point but from what we've heard so far I'm expecting a step down in quality, which would be a shame. Anders' hundred and one plans to get peace of mind from the last album clearly didn't work, as he's still talking about it in Rusted Nail...

I think Niklad wrote ALL the lyrics on Skydancer? It's amazing his English skills at age 18 when they wrote the album. But I don't understand shit in one song, I know they said on the DT documentary that they just tried to put as much riffs and words as they could in every song because they were so happy and excited recording their first album.

Yes like I posted earlier, on Colony you could say it was Anders first album where it was his lyrics, don't know which 4-5 songs Niklas translated on Colony though, just guessing by the lyrical style I would say at least Zombie Inc, Scorn and Colony.

I think TJR is way harder to interpret than Whoracle. Jester313's post about Worlds Within the Margin is how I read I interpet it as well. My favorite lyrics on Whoracle is definitely The Hive though, I love the lyrics in that song. To me it's kind of a continuation of the lyrics to Graveland. About how mankind is stagnant and we just follow the same pattern all the time, not progressing or becoming better, continously failing, just kind of being slaves really.

Most of the old stuff I have a real hard time understanding what the songs are about though, since my native language is not English. And lyrics definitely changed R2R and onwards to a more direct and straight forward approach. Because they were tired of doing the same thing. 5 albums and an EP in the same studio with the same guy, and with Clayman being an unpleasant recording session according to both the band and Fredrik Nordström, it's not that weird they tried out something new. And I think I posted it earlier, Fredrik said that when they recorded Whoracle the band was getting bored of writing the same type of harmonic riffs.

Here's the quote from Fredrik:
"I know that In Flames wanted to change styles much, much earlier than they actually did. Around the third album, they wanted to stop using the melodic guitar harmonies. I was the guy saying, “no, no, we have to keep the melodies. We have to do the harmonies.” “No! We are so bored of harmonies!” (Nordström now takes an authoritarian tone) “You have a responsibility to your fans! And they are expecting this stuff.” But they toured their asses off and have had very good success; and of course they should have it. But I wish they had stayed in the same lane, and that may have given them much more success."

 

[A88]

Good man, Fredrik.

I miss the folk influences, but I guess that is gone with Jesper.

 

[Jester313]

English is my native and only language and I have a hard time with some of the old songs. Mainly because the grammar can sometimes be poor (for understandable reasons) or in some cases like on Colony, mistranslated maybe or misprinted in the booklet of just a word or two which can kinda throw you off.

 

[DE4life]

Who cares if we are offtopic. There's no moderator lol.

I think Niklad wrote ALL the lyrics on Skydancer? It's amazing his English skills at age 18 when they wrote the album. But I don't understand shit in one song, I know they said on the DT documentary that they just tried to put as much riffs and words as they could in every song because they were so happy and excited recording their first album.

From recollection Sundin wrote the lyrics for Nightfall by the Shore of Time, A Bolt of Blazing Gold, In Tears Bereaved, Shadow Duet, My Faeryland Forgotten and Alone. Stanne wrote Crimson Winds, Skywards, and Through Ebony Archways.

The lyrics do sometimes feel like they've been crammed into the songs. Sometimes Anders can't keep up and totally skips words. There are some amazing songs on Skydancer though - Nightfall by the Shore of Time, A Bolt of Blazing Gold, In Tears Bereaved, Through Ebony Archways and Alone are really great songs. Alone is one of my favourite songs in all my library, and I prefer Anders on vocals to Stanne's '94 version. There's something more desperate in Anders' vocals which Stanne's lack in his version.

Yes like I posted earlier, on Colony you could say it was Anders first album where it was his lyrics, don't know which 4-5 songs Niklas translated on Colony though, just guessing by the lyrical style I would say at least Zombie Inc, Scorn and Colony.

From a grammar standpoint Colony is superior to Clayman which is why I prefer it lyrically. Clayman is great but has a few strange verses which probably would have benefited from an experienced eye going over them first.

I think TJR is way harder to interpret than Whoracle. Jester313's post about Worlds Within the Margin is how I read I interpet it as well. My favorite lyrics on Whoracle is definitely The Hive though, I love the lyrics in that song. To me it's kind of a continuation of the lyrics to Graveland. About how mankind is stagnant and we just follow the same pattern all the time, not progressing or becoming better, continously failing, just kind of being slaves really.

TJR, for me, just seems more focused in terms of lyrical structure and meaning. There's an obvious point to all the songs, whereas Whoracle is very abstract. Both have their merits though and I still like the lyrics on Whoracle, even if at times I'm not sure what Anders/Niklas is getting at.

Most of the old stuff I have a real hard time understanding what the songs are about though, since my native language is not English. And lyrics definitely changed R2R and onwards to a more direct and straight forward approach. Because they were tired of doing the same thing. 5 albums and an EP in the same studio with the same guy, and with Clayman being an unpleasant recording session according to both the band and Fredrik Nordström, it's not that weird they tried out something new. And I think I posted it earlier, Fredrik said that when they recorded Whoracle the band was getting bored of writing the same type of harmonic riffs.

Here's the quote from Fredrik:
"I know that In Flames wanted to change styles much, much earlier than they actually did. Around the third album, they wanted to stop using the melodic guitar harmonies. I was the guy saying, “no, no, we have to keep the melodies. We have to do the harmonies.” “No! We are so bored of harmonies!” (Nordström now takes an authoritarian tone) “You have a responsibility to your fans! And they are expecting this stuff.” But they toured their asses off and have had very good success; and of course they should have it. But I wish they had stayed in the same lane, and that may have given them much more success."

I was told when at university by various creative writing instructors that it is always best to be straightforward with language. I don't think it was a bad thing for the band to move away from the metaphors as at times it was difficult to work out exactly what they meant. Unfortunately at times on certain albums they've dumbed them down too much and Anders has been very lazy with some lines and descriptions. Even so, he has a good talent for writing lyrics and it's hard sometimes to fit certain words to match the music.

When I was doing a project with a friend, who asked me to write lyrics and do vocals for some of his songs, I sometimes had to totally rewrite what I intended because I couldn't fit the idea into the song structure without the vocal melody sounding weird. Sometimes things become simpler so I understand that need.

Musically, of course it's OK for them to move on... but it's also sad because it strips the music of something that was very unique to In Flames as a band. It kinda sucks to read they were never really that enthusiastic about writing the riffs that made Colony and Clayman so special.

Some more quotes from Nordstrom regarding In Flames...

MP: These last questions are directed for you personally. You've worked with In Flames in the past. What's your opinion on their musical direction over the last two albums?

Fredrik: I haven't heard the whole of the albums, I should say for a start. I heard some songs on the radio. I honestly think they should stay more in their own direction, because they were like the leader of the pack. Now they have switched over to the more American nu-metal style and they are like the followers. There are bands in America who are growing big because of the style of In Flames because they were following that from the beginning. So in one way I think its bad but in the same way I think they were quite bored of doing that stuff. So maybe they had to find a new way to develop themselves. Absolutely, they've reached some success with that. On the "Clayman" album there were not agreements but that turned out to be quite a good album. For In Flames, maybe it was a good move. Maybe, I don't know, I can't say... What made Iron Maiden so big actually is they almost always stayed in the same plain. What made McDonalds good? I hate McDonalds personally...

MP: Would you ever like to work with them again?

Fredrik: Yes, but maybe during different circumstances. There was some bird whispering in my ear some days ago... But I had Anders in too much studio work, everything gets so messy, he was in the band, and also part of the studio. It was like "if I take you to the studio, it means I'm going to lose In Flames". I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I know they're searching for a new producer and my personal opinion is they're doing right. It's just my taste, but they need to change the snare sound (makes dodgy snare sound) it's like playing in reggae music. That's my opinion, I suppose. I told them what I think to one of the guitar players. Bjorn's actually working on a new project now with a female singer, very good singer. It's going to turn out to be like, not Evanescence, but in the same...You get the smell of In Flames but with very good female vocals. It could turn out to be good.