Lunar Strain is still boring, still my least favorite.
Some of it is boring (Lunar Strain, Dreamscape, Everlost Part I), some of it is great (Behind Space, In Flames, Upon an Oaken Throne, Clad in Shadows). But I think you have to genuinely like that older style of embryonic melodic death metal to really appreciate the better songs on LS. Particularly as the production is so amateur.
Jester Race reigns supreme, nothing comes close.
I wouldn't so as far as to say nothing comes close, but yeah, TJR is a great album.
Whoracle has some good songs but it suffers from the lack of a proper drummer.
Something about Whoracle's production has always bugged me slightly. It's a bit more 'raw' than TJR and in some ways sounds like it was produced before TJR, rather than the other way around. I still love the album regardless.
Clayman is better than I used to think it was. Anders is very out of place when not screaming.
His cleans were better on Colony. More powerful. I don't mind the mumbling stuff on Clayman though. Production wise it's basically perfection as far as metal albums are concerned.
Reroute pwns y00. "Minus" is one of the best In Flames songs of all time.
If the band hadn't completely fucked the production of this album it would be regarded much more highly than it is. There is so much good shit on this album that unfortunately you have to listen really hard to hear. The band admitted as much during STYE (which is ironic as they fucked up the production of that album as well) but I wish they'd go back and remaster Reroute properly. Clayman didn't even fucking need it. More popular and more $$$ in remastering Clayman though.
Soundtrack is good but needed some more time in the oven to develop some of its ideas.
STYE is best listened to via the Used & Abused DVD. Production on the album itself is flat as fuck and drains most of the songs of any serious power. I used to think the album was devoid of any decent guitar melodies but you can actually hear much more when the songs are played live.
Come Clarity is not nearly as good as I remember. It's mostly just attack attack attack and it gets boring after a while.
I'm not sure if I'd call Come Clarity boring at any point, but there are a few 'filler' tracks in there which don't really add anything - Scream, Pacing Death's Trail, Versus Terminus and Our Infinite Struggle immediately come to mind. With that said the great songs on the album are genuinely great - Leeches, Dead End, Vacuum, Crawl Through Knives and Vanishing Light in particular are stellar IF tracks.
A Sense of Purpose kicks ass, how the hell did I consider this one of their weaker albums.
You considered it as one of their weaker albums because the production and vocals are atrocious. There is some good stuff on ASOP but a lot of it is destroyed by the production, much worse than Reroute. The difference between Reroute and ASOP is that Reroute could be remastered from the original master recordings and be significantly improved - for ASOP Anders would have to rerecord all of his vocals because, in my opinion, they are that bad.
Sounds of a Playground Fading is boring and nowhere near as good as I remember.
No. Try again.
Siren Charms is the worst thing they've ever done and the best thing they've ever done. I fucking love this thing. It's the anti-In Flames album.
I think there's something beyond the music itself that draws you to this album, as it really isn't very good and even the band have acknowledged the disappointment surrounding this album. It's not just that it's 'anti In-Flames', it's simply bad music.
I did a big ol' review of this album last year whilst lockdown was on.
https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/DE4life/in-flames/siren-charms/131173355
Battles has some good parts but is mostly euuuughh.
Wallflower is that only song worth a damn on Battles. A major improvement on the TCP formula. Everything else on this album sucks. In my view Battles is their worst album - on SC they failed, but at least they were still trying to write genuine music. Battles has no soul. Formulaic Howard Benson bullshit.
I, the Mask is just as euuuugh as Battles, not better. I'm actually wondering if I think ItM is worse. I still enjoy both more than Lunar Strain.
Your last sentence is probably just because you don't really like old school death metal. But whilst ITM is still Howard Benson's In Flames, it's way, way better than Battles. Production alone is a massive step up. Listen to how castrated the guitars sound in Battles compared to ITM. Neither are amazing but it's still night and day. The production alone makes it almost impossible for me to listen to Battles. It's "metal" produced for people who don't really like metal. Totally fake. ITM has portions of this fakeness but also many parts where it almost sounds like the band is getting back to SOAPF levels. They didn't quite get there but still, it felt to me like a step back towards being an actual metal band rather than some weird alternative rock group, which is basically what SC and Battles seemed to be aiming towards.
