IN FLAMES new album being released on 1st March, 2019

All The Pain - 7.5/10 (+1.5) - this one has grown on me quite a lot. Anders carries the melody really well with his voice during this song, and there's some decent instrumental at parts too. By far the worst part of this song is the chorus. It sounds awkward and simply doesn't work. A shame as the rest of the song flows very well.

Stay With Me - 9/10 (+2.5) - what was I thinking ranking this a 6.5? Up there with the best IF ballads.
Welcome back to the Anders Man Love crew haha. These days we jamming to coffee house adult contemporary. Next album I’m hoping for some more Jewel and Sheryl Crow influence. It’s all good.
 
Yes that’s one of my fears. Or I accidentally hit play and I haven’t turned my volume down. No one needs to know I’m rocking some crazy stuff. Or maybe that day it was kpop. That would be even more embarrassing to be honest. But you survived it, so I know I could too.

There are a lot worse songs or parts of songs that could have been playing, so yeah, kind of lucky it was just Bjorn wahhhhing.

Welcome back to the Anders Man Love crew haha. These days we jamming to coffee house adult contemporary. Next album I’m hoping for some more Jewel and Sheryl Crow influence. It’s all good.

As much as I rip on Anders, he has improved vocally since SC/Battles. Those vocal lessons have definitely had some effect. It's just a shame he felt he had to ProTool his voice to such an extent on so many songs. Judging by the snippets we hear with very little ProTools/autotune influence he actually sounds fine. Compare to Come Clarity (the song) for example, and he sounds wayyyy better than he did back then.
 
You seem to be confused about how it works the autotune. It does not "change" your voice. It corrects your mistakes while singing. Can also be used to bring some effects when extremely used, but that's it.

When people says that Anders uses autotune they're not talking about his voicr but about how well he does his clean lines.

Anders abuses autotune and it sounds really bad on the album. The pitch transitions are unnatural and plain ugly.
 
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From the NB website when they were advertising the new album:

The result is a massive-sounding album that showcases why IN FLAMES are one of the biggest metal bands in the world. From the way acoustic guitars give way to to anthemic riffing on the power ballad ‘Call My Name’ to the relentless riffing on ‘Burn’ and sweetly syncopated groove of ‘I Am Above,’ »I, The Mask« sees the band stretching out musically and crafting music that's as catchy as it is crushing.

Acoustic guitars on the power ballad Call My Name? They clearly confused CMN with Follow Me. They don't even know the product they are selling.
 
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There are a lot worse songs or parts of songs that could have been playing, so yeah, kind of lucky it was just Bjorn wahhhhing.



As much as I rip on Anders, he has improved vocally since SC/Battles. Those vocal lessons have definitely had some effect. It's just a shame he felt he had to ProTool his voice to such an extent on so many songs. Judging by the snippets we hear with very little ProTools/autotune influence he actually sounds fine. Compare to Come Clarity (the song) for example, and he sounds wayyyy better than he did back then.

As Anders sang on Not Alone: 'I'll wait for you until you come back home." WELCOME TO ANDERS MANLOVE CREW BROTHER, WE WAITED TOO LONG FOR THIS!!! :D :D
 
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Goddamn that polish review is savage haha.

I was curious to see how In This Life would sound sped up 2x as @DE4life suggested, so I took the song to Audacity and sped it up, and holy fuck what an improvement. Chorus is still balls but the song is a lot catchier. Also the Bjorn's solo sounds fucking awesome.
 

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As Anders sang on Not Alone: 'I'll wait for you until you come back home." WELCOME TO ANDERS MANLOVE CREW BROTHER, WE WAITED TOO LONG FOR THIS!!! :D :D

Hold your horses there bucko :D I'll give Anders credit where it's due, he's obviously worked on his vocals and that's great, it shows. That said it's a shame he waited this long to take it seriously. His past comments like "I know I can't sing but it doesn't matter because of the emotion" always bugged me. Your voice is your instrument, dude, and if you want to sing then make some fucking effort rather than coasting and ruining potentially decent songs. I hope he continues taking this seriously as by the next album there should be even greater improvement, and he should be able to ditch the excessive protooling that has become a little overwhelming over the past three albums especially.

Goddamn that polish review is savage haha.

I was curious to see how In This Life would sound sped up 2x as @DE4life suggested, so I took the song to Audacity and sped it up, and holy fuck what an improvement. Chorus is still balls but the song is a lot catchier. Also the Bjorn's solo sounds fucking awesome.

Increasing the speed definitely improves the overall song. Chorus is still annoying but musically this is a better track with a higher tempo.
 
It might raise it to a 3/10 for me as opposed to a 2/10, partially because it finishes much quicker.
 
All of this conversation about Anders improving his singing reminds me of the release of sc and how the most of the people praised him for this. Then we saw him live... Just saying.
 
Producing these vocals live will be a tough task due to his age, strain on his vocal chords and damage he's already done over his career due to poor screaming technique. I don't expect him to ever realistically be able to reproduce album vocals live, no matter how many lessons he has. Maybe, possibly on slower songs like Stay With Me or Through Oblivion, if he practices really hard and they are early in the set. Otherwise it'll mostly be backing tracks doing the work.
 
In fact, I'd say with enough training he should definitely be able to perform Through Oblivion competently live. There's nothing too difficult vocally there, it's all within his natural range. Stay With Me a little trickier but still possible. Where he struggles and will continue to struggle is tracks where there's a lot of electric guitar behind the vocals, as he'll have to project his cleans much more powerfully and it'll probably be too much strain on his voice. Plus songs where he uses ProTools/autotune to produce unrealistically high notes which he simply cannot and will never be able to do live. It's his prerogative if he wishes to sound like this on album but there's no chance of Anders being able to pull this off live, these notes just aren't in his natural range and I don't think at this stage in the game it's something that vocal lessons alone will be able to solve.
 
This "updated ratings" thing seems fun! I'm not gonna explain each again as I cba, but;

Voices 8/10
I, The Mask 8/10
Call My Name 6/10
I Am Above 7/10
Follow Me 7.5/10
(This Is Our) House 3/10
We Will Remember 7/10
In This Life 6/10
Burn 7/10
Deep Inside 8.5/10
All The Pain 7.5/10
Stay With Me 9/10
Not Alone 6.5/10
 
No tempo change will help that song.

Well, not much you can do to a turd besides polish it (I exaggerated when I called it an improvement), but I did like the catchier intro and the shred-tastic soloing.
 
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No rating changes for me...or maybe I'll give We Will Remember a 6/10 (+1) and In This Life a 4/10 (-1), so the overall album rating stays the same.

Some interesting facts regarding the new album:

1. The composers of the songs:
All tracks written by Anders Fridén, Björn Gelotte and Howard Benson, except "In This Life" written by Fridén, Gelotte, Benson, Seann Bowe and Lenny Skolnik.

They said that Benson didn't write anything, he just acted as a filter to Anders' and Björn's creativity. However, he gets credit for all of the songs as a writer.

2. Different songs were released by each record company on youtube.

NB: Voices, ITM, IAA, Burn, Deep Inside

E7: CMN, Follow Me, House, We Will Remember, In This Life, All The Pain, SWM

NB got all the heavy songs and E7 got the ones with a more accessible to everyone sound.
 
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No rating changes for me...or maybe I'll give We Will Remember a 6/10 (+1) and In This Life a 4/10 (-1), so the overall album rating stays the same.

Some interesting facts regarding the new album:

1. The composers of the songs:
All tracks written by Anders Fridén, Björn Gelotte and Howard Benson, except "In This Life" written by Fridén, Gelotte, Benson, Seann Bowe and Lenny Skolnik.

They said that Benson didn't write anything, he just acted as a filter to Anders' and Björn's creativity. However, he gets credit for all of the songs as a writer.

2. Different songs were released by each record company on youtube.

NB: Voices, ITM, IAA, Burn, Deep Inside

E7: CMN, Follow Me, House, We Will Remember, In This Life, All The Pain, SWM

NB got all the heavy songs and E7 got the ones with a more accessible to everyone sound.

Why am I not surprised that Benson and his cronies are all over the worst song on the album? Anders & Bjorn really need to ditch that guy. Either go back to Bergstrand or find somebody who isn't a total buttsquid.
 
here are my SCORES

voices 7/10
i'm a mask 10/10 its the song that finally made me understand the jester slave
call my name 7/10
i am above 9/10
follow me - 6/10
this is a house 3/10
we remember 5/10
in my life 5/10
burn 8/10
deep in side 7/10
all the pains 5/10
stay with me 7/10
not alone 5/10

6/10 album and overall it is ok but I wanted more songs like I am a mask not boring singing songs i WISH anders To sing less
 
1. The composers of the songs:
All tracks written by Anders Fridén, Björn Gelotte and Howard Benson, except "In This Life" written by Fridén, Gelotte, Benson, Seann Bowe and Lenny Skolnik.

They said that Benson didn't write anything, he just acted as a filter to Anders' and Björn's creativity. However, he gets credit for all of the songs as a writer.
This is ridiculous. They lied. Kmowing that the lie was going to be discovered when the album was released. The question is, why?
 
I can't help but notice in Deep Inside there is a line where Anders says "the light have died", The light have died. That makes no grammatical sense. It's clearly the light HAS died. How can somebody who's been writing in english for 20 years, and is also working with a producer who speaks native english, make such a basic error? That line is going to irritate me every time I hear it now.
 
I can't help but notice in Deep Inside there is a line where Anders says "the light have died", The light have died. That makes no grammatical sense. It's clearly the light HAS died. How can somebody who's been writing in english for 20 years, and is also working with a producer who speaks native english, make such a basic error? That line is going to irritate me every time I hear it now.
I see a bunch of weird stuff in US tv series. Like I've seen "I are" one too many time. I checked back my message logs with a friend I am always complaining to about stuff like this, and here's an example from Mr. Robot: "It's not safe. I wish it were." Though maybe it is right, because I know I wish I was and I wish I were are basically the same thing, but it sounds stupid to me. Like what kind of fucking exception is that?