I am talking about the guitars, nothing else. Garbage on SOAPF, garbage on SC and garbage on Battles. Yes, vastly different kind of garbages thanks to the different productions, but being able to choose which way I want to listen to my garbage is not really much of a choice after all, is it? ITM however sounds neat, mostly. And once again, I am talking about the guitars and how they're played, not about the overall production. ASOP could have sounded 10 times better, but the fucking guitars are still playing fast and melodic metal music, and not drawn out, sleep-inducing riffs. These are seperate topics.
Whilst I agree the riffs were shit on SC & Battles, I don't know why you think these riffs are so much better than the stuff off SOAPF. A lot of the verses from ITM songs sound like they literally could have been ripped straight off SOAPF. The weaker songs, granted, but still.
You are right about the IF sound, as there is none, but there still is, as little sense it makes. Björn and Anders repeat this fucking mantra about how IF was, is and will always be IF, and they are actually right. It used to be just about the melodies, than later on it was Anders as well.
"Classic IF sound" exists from 1996-2000, dual guitar harmonies with unique scream style vocals. Cool. Everything after that is a mish mash of so many different styles and sounds that there's no identity there whatsoever, save for Anders' vocals which themselves have gone through a lot of changes. Listen to his growls/screams & cleans on Come Clarity, for example, and it sounds totally different to what we hear on ITM. When Anders & Bjorn talk about the IF sound, for me that's just a soundbyte, a catchphrase, a slogan, a business label. It doesn't have any grounding in reality and whenever they get asked to go into more detail they always talk about "melody and aggression", as if they're the only band to ever do that. It describes the vast majority of metal bands outside of the most extreme genres so it's pretty bold for them to claim they created that sound. I think Metallica and Megadeth might want to have a word.
Anyway, their new tone was really flat and didn't suit them well. Listen to Jotun, Pinball Map, Drifter, In Search for I, Vacuum and Sober and Irrelevant and tell me the guitar play don't sound similar. Not the production, but that trademark energy, which still sounds melodic, not just some death metal crazyness. Then listen to something from SOAPF (except Ropes I guess) and tell me it doesn't sound flat and slow. Similar, sure, but fucking disgusting. I miss those times when their guitars were let loose, and I can finally feel that again with ITM. Not entirely, but not complaining.
I genuinely don't think SOAPF sounds flat at all. I think the entire production, including guitars, sounds huge, vibrant and energetic. Very different from their past stuff, sure, but it fits that album and the music on it perfectly. Seeing what you write about SOAPF, it feels like you haven't listened to the album in a long time. I think you'd be surprised how many cool riffs and melodies are scattered across that album.
I guess Battles is somewhat of an exception, because the guitars were absolutely shafted on that record, except for Wallflower. Battles is basically a solo singing record from Anders, with some random dudes playing random notes on their instruments quietly. Still, when you actually hear them, it's lackluster. The End could have been such a good song, but that heavy guitar drives me crazy, giving me ptsd of SOAPF.
You're basically describing SC here, too
but yes, on both SC and Battles guitars are really shit, weak and paper-thin. The riffs on the songs we've heard from ITM so far are definitely chunkier and pack more punch, but at the same time they're still hamstrung by this shit Benson production which they need to get away from ASAP.
Burn, ITM and IAA all have many elements (even if they are stolen lul) of that old-school (can ASOP be called old-school? I guess) riffage, and Voices sounds like an actually finished Battles track. Not satisfied with the guitar tone there, but at least it's not an Anders solo show, and also not some slow ass shit like SOAPF or SC. I honestly can't remember anything else from House aside from the chorus, and I am not willing to listen to it again, so I'm not sure about the guitars there.
I wouldn't call any of those songs old-school, particularly, but they are borrowing more elements from the ASOP/SOAPF era than on the previous two records. Again, just a shame about the production.
