I'm with Jester313 (though I'm fine with ASOP), it doesn't mean anything that the structure matches. Unless you are listening to some powermetal or progressive rock, the formula is pretty much the same everywhere, even with old classics. As for old IF, they had tons of repeating patterns as well. Hell, their best songs from that era are built on the same pattern where the song leads up to the best solos ever and then it ends with the chorus or verse-chorus. Kinda stupid to rate songs this way, and PlainVanilla gave a nice example to present how meaningless this pattern is. Through Oblivion is something entirely different than Everything's gone, even if they are built on the same structure.
I'm happy the album is receiving positive reviews from many fans; in the case of R2R and ASOP I could (or could've, haven't been around for R2R) understand the initial 9-1 hate/like ratio, but when I read comments here like "this is not an In Flames album/this is not In Flames anymore" I can't find enough hands to facepalm with. If their later albums were IF, than this is 100% IF as well. While this album (as all IF albums) does not want to repeat the previous ones, it has that undeniable IF sound. Some songs could've been even put onto STYE or CC if it wasn't for the production. Just give the clean production of STYE or the very characteristic guitar settings of CC to In Plain View and it fits perfectly. Through Oblivion is the Come Clarity of SC, and When The World Explodes is like the songs I have been skipping since STYE with the added female vocale. I find those songs godawfully boring but others claim it to be their better songs, so to each of their own.
I like how Anders and co. managed to produce the softest IF album without breaking the big picture of In Flames. Most of the songs still "rock", you won't hold torches to the air during Everything's Gone, Paralyzed, Siren Chams, In Plain View, Filtered Truth. etc., some of these are just more delicate. I'm not afraid at all from the live experience in this september, because they have enough screaming-madness songs in their catalog, and Anders said that while he deliberately avoided screaming on this album, he will definetly do it live; it just did not fit the album's concept.
As for Anders' singing, I definetly feel the vibe and I don't have the feeling of "blahblah it's a sad chorus for you listener, but I really don't give a crap". Anders has a nice talent to make shit sound desperate if he puts himself to it. I don't agree with the album being too experimental though. For me, their albums since CC have not been so brave, and SC is no exception. Different? Sure, but I don't see any Leeches on this album.
The title seems really fitting the sounding of the album. Both siren and charm are related to soft things and affection. I'm not sure who else has ever been interested in Anders' (and back then maybe Jesper's too, though doubt it) vision about the concept and meaning of each albums since Whoracle. Not sure about TJR, but Whoracle seems to be the first one with a set concept behind it. It's funny, because I never really checked the lyrics from start to finish on each album, and it was only yesterday, reading the lyrics of Take This Life when I had to realize that's actually a love song, lol. I should definetly do that in the upcoming days.
