Hey there!
I know IF for about ~8 years now, and I'm pretty much the definition of new wave In Flames fan. Obviously, this means that most of the people on this board sounds like some old geezer, who still wakes up at nights because he thinks the nazis are bombing. As for me, I can pretty much enjoy listening to any genre, from Slayer to Lady Gaga, and I never wrote any comment to Justin Bieber's videos in Youtube, though I don't like his music at all. I had my narrow-minded stage of my life (regarding music) in elementary school when there were 3 types of musical taste:
1. Girls. Everything they listen to sucks, obviously, they are girls, they are ugly, stupid and no one cares about them.
2. "Rockers". Drums and guitar are good. Like, really good. Everything that soundsl ike pop or disco is shit, anyone could produce such songs and have no quality whatsoever. Only stupid people listen to those songs.
3. "Poppers" Music you can dance to is great! Rockers can suck a dick, because it's just uncoordinated noise with stupid unaudible screaming without any emotion. Rockers are poor motherfuckers who like to sleep in dirt.
As amusing as it was to keep calling each other stupid for not liking the music we do, it got pretty boring, and by the time you pass 12, you start to open up your mind a little bit. Not everyone, of course, just visit IF facebook page and you can learn why you should not drink and smoke during pregnancy. Today, I can pretty much separate the music I'm listening to and rate it on its' own category. Like, Lady Gaga's Artpop is much better than her previous album. I know what you think now, The Fame was even better, but I beg to differ, it was only better if you consider it one with the EP after it. Haha. My favourite band (well, not really a band) is Nine Inch Nails, who did not release the same album twice ever, on the contrary, they are pretty different, and the changes did not come naturally at all. You waited for 5 years between albums just to hear something entirely different. It spawned some controvery of course, but we are kinda elitist, so we think that because we like NIN we are superior to other music listeners, hehe. Whether it's true or not, it certainly had the benefit to be much more acceptible towards the records, and people gave them time to sink and to appreciate the value. So, the NIN community digested the changes much easier, Trent Reznor is a very characteristic guy, and he said many times that if you don't like his music then fine, you can always go and fuck yourself instead of bitching. There are cavemen in the NIN facebook as well, but it's the same with almost every artist that has been around for more than 10 years. Probably Linkin Park is the best example. They have shitton of fans and they can fill any arenas, but if you would only inform from their facebook, you would think they already went bankrupt because no one bought any of their albums since Meteora. Yeah, right!
So when did I first hear an In Flames song? Probably 8-10 years ago, when I asked for a Slipknot album and my friend gave me a compilation disc which had R2R on it with 1/3 of the songs missing. I didn't listen to it first, I only wanted the Slipknot album, but eventually I was like why not, so I randomly opened some tracks. Dawn Of A New Day got me instantly, amazing song, but I kinda forgor about the band after that. Then ~8 years ago someone sent me OFTW and Leeches via MSN. Loved them, listened to them for weeks, but it was much much later I dug myself deeper in the IF catalog. When downloading whole albums, hell, discography became so easy I eventually dl'd the IF discography. I think it took me 5 minutes to skip the whole Lunar Strain to Clayman part and only listen the newer albums back to back. Couldn't help it, I wanted to hear songs from the band who did OFTW, Reflect The Storm, Take This Life, so hearing someone going "arghhh wuuurgh bhhh bhhhh argwuuush!" like some soft-cannibal corpse copy did not please me. Then listening to their live album which had songs like Jotun and Colony I decided to give their older albums another chance. I was making playlists for each band I was listening to anyway, so at nights I listened to each of their albums thoroughly to find songs worth listen to in a compilation.Well, tried to.
Lunar Strain is the typical shit which might be fucking cool to like in certain underground communities, but it won't change the fact that it's shit. People on this board seem to have an orgasm just by mentioning the guy (yeah, I can't even remember his name, even though I just finished a thread where every comment was "Anders is a pile of shit, [insert guy here] is the true and only god") who sings on that record, not sure why. On DT (heard like 2 songs from them
) he seems okay, but that's just a huge zero. Anders is beyond terrible on Skydancer, so I'm not hating on anyone for sucking big time at the beginning of their career as pretty much amateur musicians. Still, Lunar Strain's biggest flaw is not just the shitty vocals and - obviously - terrible quality, but the lack of melodies. I especially hate Behind Space and I beg they don't return it to the setlist. So. Fucking. Boring. I have to give credit for two things though. The acustic pieces (whether standalone tracks like Hargalaten or the intermezzos in-between or at the end of songs) are beautiful. Then they remake Behind Space without the acoustic ending... GO FIGURE. The second thing is Everlost part 2. Wow, just wow. I hate Dead End and don't like When The World Explodes either, but man, that song is beautiful! Not sure how much credit is due to In Flames, it seems such an off idea, but works so well! If they want to play anything this tour from Lunar Strain, let it be Everlost pt2! Won't happen, I know, but one can hope. I wish I had more songs from the singer, but it seems to be that she disappeared. Oh well, that song remains a mistery to me.
Stand Ablaze. Well, it's an EP, and only a year passed since LS, but man, it's great! Acoustic parts? Check. Melodies? Check. Good vocals? Check. You see, I have no problem with growling and screaming, just don't try to imitate the satan. Fucking boring and annoying. It's sad they won't play Stand Ablaze (DAT SOLO), and I don't know why they don't remake it with Anders singing on it. No, they had to fucking remake Behind Space. Without acoustics. Ahhh...
The Jester Race: Definetly the most boring album for me. I mean, LS is shit, but this is boring. I totally get why Anders wanted to change things slowly but surely. People keep bashing him that he only sounded good in later albums, some even saying his best performance was on TJR. Mind = blown. I get it, you dig old IF especially TJR, but how sujective you have to be to call generic, repetitive mumbling and growling better than mixing up screams with clean covals, often fluently connecting the two?? Even if you hate it, that's just bullshit to discredit it. The album has some very nice songs by the way, like Artifacts, Moonshield and Accoustic Medley (nvm, re-release). As Anders said in many of his interviews, every album was the best they could do at the time, so I don't want to shit on TJR too much, they were still total newbies who just got a good record deal for the first time ever. At the time it must've been amazing. With today's standards, it lacks a lot. And no, not electronics, soft tracks or such.
Whoracle: Such an oddone! For me, the first album where IF sounds absolutely amazing musically, it's just that Anders is still in his hamster-wheel. "Hey, Anders, we are almost finished! Growl something on the tracks please, you know, some heavy melodic death metal stuff!" You see, there songs which works great with Anders going nuts on them, and there are songs which not. It's so obvious on later albums. Jotun is great, Episode 666 is carried by the riffraffs, Anders is just doing what anyone could, and god, why the fuck did he have to ruin Morphing Into Primal? Such good music! Anyway, Whoracle (song) is very mesmerizing. Now, there's one track I want to talk about from the record, and it is Everything Counts. "Omg, if sux after clayman, pls shoot me" meanwhile there's a DM cover two albums before Clayman with melodic, partially soft singing. Wow, who could've seen new In Flames coming? I will continue on this at Clayman...
Colony: The first album where Anders was like "hey, guys can I... can I actually sing this time? I believe I could make the tracks more interesting!" and the band said okay, or was drunk and couldn't say no. We will never know, but this is the first album where he adjusted his vocals and it finally sounds like a complete band. Zombie Inc. (please play this, PLEASE) and Colony (song) are awesome, and if I mentioned EC from the previous album, I have to say this: Insipid 2000. Catchy as fuck, but see you at Clayman.
Clayman: All right, I always hear how shit they become after this album. Then I pop it in and I hear Anders screaming about pinball maps with vocals only distrupted by production. Okay, no problem, here comes Only For The Weak, probably the most commercial non-ballad song of theirs after Alias. Clayman (song) is soft and I just realised it has electronics as well. Okay. Anders tries his best to imitate his good old self where he fucks up otherwise great songs with unnecessary growls, so here's to you, Swim. Luckily, for the next track in order, Suburban Me, he was like "fuck it", and made such another commercial song that the only reason we don't talk about it is because OFTW overshadows it. Seriously, this record is full of songs which have much heavier counterparts on later albums, yet it is "the last good if album". Lol. LS, SA and TJR are the only albums (and ep, yeah) where the commercial part of my brain can't find any satisfaction. If I didn't dig great riffs and couldn't bear growls at all, I would never listen to them. Well, as I said, LS is shit, but sometimes I fastforward to the end of BS... guilty, I know.
Reroute To Remain: HOLY SHIT, A SOMEWHAT COMMERCIAL IF RECORD. How did this happen???!?!? I totally did not see it coming, no signs whatsoever since Whoracle! Is this Linkin Park? Or is Linkin Park In Flames? Am I real?? ---- Okay, to be fair, thsi record is indeed the oddest one in the whole IF discography, and doesn't seem to have any connection with other IF albums. You can put this record in-between any of the older or newer records and it would not make sense. Clayman-STYE would've been an easier thing to digest and explain. But it is what it is, my favourite IF album by far, 10/10 get the hate train going! I love how Anders and co. finally broke through their barriers. If In Flames did not reroute, they probably not have remained (GET IT PEOPLE? REROUTE TO REMAIN!!!). I mean, 16 people here would jerk off to their 20th TJR album saying how fucking awesome this band is, and how great is Anders, he growled 0-24 in another 12 tracks straight, such talent, best MDM Gotheburg, but they would not headline any shows outside of local beerfests. Rerouting had began long before R2R was released and Clayman was by far the biggest hint that things were changing: almost clear vocals, electronics, lack of medleys (not saying it's good, but wouldn't fit on R2R at all) and catchy songs. Anders also said how they had conflicts in the studio for Clayman and how R2R was created in a perfectly laidback environment where they could produce whatever the hell THEY wanted. I can understand it, because it's obvious you can't breach your musical limits in a studio that's streamrolling MDM albums and that's all. You show them a synthetiser and they can't do shit with it. Then you ask them to help producing clean vocals and they ask back "clean what? growls?". Now whether R2R is a good IF album is debateable. It shouts that the guys were fucking happy to be released from their chains (not that they did not want to produce their previous albums, but while on Whoracle and Colony they could improve a lot, on Clayman they reached their studio's limit), and maybe too happy about it. There's a good mix of everything. You can mock Anders for the slower tracks, but then he mashes System in your face. Very interesting, and if we hadn't got enough reasons to argue over R2R, add the production to it and shit turns loose. They deliberately filtered everything on that album, and it is impossible to not notice. STYE sounds like you finally mined the fat out from both of your ears, haha. But I like the editing, it gives an album such a unique vibe. I can really sink into it, and it is the only IF album I can do that with. All of the rest (whether post- or pre-R2R) have trash songs for me. I check the tracklist for each album and I always find 2-3 songs I can't recall at all. Then I listen to them, and after the playlist ends I'm like "wait, I was listening to something???".
I won't talk about the rest, they are good, though I don't dig SOAPF, but it still in "ASOP status". When I first heard A Sense Of Purpose I was like everyone else: "what is this shit?". It was so boring, only Alias sticked, but that doesn't really count, catchy as hell. But you know, as I gave it time, it is indeed a nice record, and the only one that actually reaches back to their older material, so it's impressive how they got shit on for it anyway, haha. Clearly shows nothing (like, NOTHING) can please the 0-24 complainers. No, not even a TJR2. Anders is smart to just laugh his ass off about this whole phenomenon. Yes, I've seen the anti-ASOP guy here, I'm not saying it can't be your most hated IF album, pretty much every IF album can be hated for some reason, but ASOP is still a good one for me, albeit not as interesting. SOAPF is like the evolution of ASOP where the band said "fuck pleasing these fuckers, continue what we've been doing". ASOP was recoreded in Gotheburg if I'm right and has the original IF logo and the Jester figure in your face as well. I hope Alias is a staple in live events!
As for
Siren Charms... great. With ASOP and SOAPF I disliked both of them at first glance, but SC is just great. The only track I don't like is When The World Explodes, because they usage of female vocalists since Whoracle is abyssmal in my opinion, but that's just me. Nice variety of song, In Plain View genuenly surprised me. After Rusted Nail and Through Oblivion I expected something like thos, and then BAM, a bit more mature version Come Clarity/Soundtrack makin a cameo. Unexpected but most welcomed for sure. With Eyes Wide Open and Siren Charms (songs) are definetly my fav. track from the album, and I'm pretty sure they will play both. It's funny how WEWO is a better melancholic track than through oblivion and almsot every faster paced track is better than Rusted Nail. Man, they make a contract with Sony and release two subpar "singles". Okay, Alias-Deliver Us were like cheating to release as promo songs for the previous albums, so they might've felt bad if they put up Paralysed first, but man, Rusted Nail? Okay, after 20 listens I don't hate it, but it's definetly not promo material, unless you show the best 30 seconds from it. I find it funny how people can hate on this album as well. Jeez, it has nothing major compared to the previous ones. Sure, IF always does something different, but the only sharkjumping was R2R. Though I shouldn't be surprised, Anders was right in his interview when he said the ragers always say their newest album is the worst, then when a new one comes out, the earlier is suddenly becomes fine. Again, just look at them sheeps praising Only For The Weak and Suburban Me like it's some serious MDM stuff. Comedy. Anyway, I'm waiting for the bonus material and the proper rip. You guys must know, do IF play bonus material at live shows?
I agree with you about SC. WEWO and Siren Charms is my favorite songs from album. WEWO is really good. He's vocals is so good there.
