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

[krofius]

He did de keyboards? What does this mean? He came with keyboard melodies written by himself or he used keyboards upon some guitar melody written by the band? Those are two different things.

Well I assume that means he came up with the keyboard stuff by himself. Obviously in collaboration with the band since he also produced and recorded all the albums. There's some other dude called Charlie Storm who had synth & programming credits as well so I don't know who did exactly what, I would assume he helped adding some cool keyboard shit on the album, and not being ''hired'' as a session keyboardist or anything. My point regardless was just that I don't care if they get help or collaborate with whoever doesn't matter to me as long as it sounds awesome. I mean keep in mind, most of their best solos (IMO) during Nordström era was mostly guest-solos by other guitarist friends.

 

[ThePhobiac]

"All The Pain" is such a good song, but it's a little tarnished when you realize

Spoiler

you can clearly hear the autotune warble on Anders' vocals in the first thirty seconds, like Kanye West on "Heartless"

 

[ThePhobiac]

I did a quick listen through SOAPF, SC, Battles, and I, the Mask this evening, just to get the full breadth of modern IF.

SOAPF and SC are on a completely different level of musicianship compared to the latest two albums. The latest two albums just don't have that IF feel at all. I think I, the Mask is very good in isolation, but once you go back to the previous stuff before Battles, imo, it's a clear step down. At this point I might just consider it something like Passenger. I really think SC was the finale of the IF I always knew.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Like, jesus, I'm sure there was studio magic involved in Passenger, but holy hell do I wish Anders would go back to singing in that style again:



No obvious use of autotune, he sounds natural and within his range, none of that half-scream-half-sing that I dislike. He was going in that direction on Siren Charms, but then Benson happened. And the music itself is really good for nu/alternative metal, and compliments Anders well, which is why I wish Niclas would write more for IF.

Anyway, I'm rambling. But I think this song alone is better than anything from Battles onward, as much as I love tracks like "Voices" and "I, the Mask".

 

[DE4life]

I did a quick listen through SOAPF, SC, Battles, and I, the Mask this evening, just to get the full breadth of modern IF.

SOAPF and SC are on a completely different level of musicianship compared to the latest two albums. The latest two albums just don't have that IF feel at all. I think I, the Mask is very good in isolation, but once you go back to the previous stuff before Battles, imo, it's a clear step down. At this point I might just consider it something like Passenger. I really think SC was the finale of the IF I always knew.

Battles and ITM is basically Howard Benson's In Flames... some catchy stuff for sure, but it all feels kind of hollow and shallow, especially when compared with stuff like SOAPF. I'd say even SC had more of an IF feel, even though I think ITM is a better overall album. Battles is definitely the most empty album they've ever released, a nothing album in every sense of the word.

Like, jesus, I'm sure there was studio magic involved in Passenger, but holy hell do I wish Anders would go back to singing in that style again:



No obvious use of autotune, he sounds natural and within his range, none of that half-scream-half-sing that I dislike. He was going in that direction on Siren Charms, but then Benson happened. And the music itself is really good for nu/alternative metal, and compliments Anders well, which is why I wish Niclas would write more for IF.

Anyway, I'm rambling. But I think this song alone is better than anything from Battles onward, as much as I love tracks like "Voices" and "I, the Mask".

Phobiac, keep it together man it's gonna be OK.

I also really liked the Passenger album though. A lot of cool tracks on there, and weirdly Anders sounds more confident in terms of clean vocals on Passenger than he ever has with IF. In Reverse, Just the Same, Circles, I Die Slowly and Clowns are all really good alt. metal tracks.

 

[DE4life]

Man, I only really just noticed how out of place the solo on All the Pain sounds. It's really happy and poppy compared to literally everything else, like it was spliced in from a totally different song. This is one of my major issues with Bjorn and his solos - it doesn't feel like he puts enough effort into integrating and adapting his solos to the overall tone of the song he's working on. Instead most of the time it's just like he wrote 10 similar sounding solos in isolation and just inserted them into songs in random order. There are notable exceptions like In My Room and Follow Me, but it's still something that bugs me.

 

[eochaid]

The same can be said about the choruses from voices, I the mask or burn. Of there's a pattern then it's probably made on purpose.

 

[DE4life]

I actually think the chorus of Deep Inside would plug straight into All The Pain... and it would sound better than the actual chorus in that song.

 

[eochaid]

I said this before. In my opinion, the choruses from the worst songs, or for the most commercial ones, are more coherent, structure wise, with their songs than the choruses from those "more metal songs". I see no break in all the pain or in this life, we will remember, house...

But I see it in the ones that I named before. It's almost as if they were thinking "wow, we're going too metal here, lets slow down things for a while".

This is making those songs go from almost excellent to a wtf? Though I still join voices because the rest of the song is pretty good.

 

[A88]

Been listening the album again. My God, ITL is such a terrible song in every fucking way. Fake 200%.

CMN is an excellent song buried under the mountains of autotune, weak choruses and just plain bad decision-making in the recording and post-recording stages.

 

[galvanized]

I said this before. In my opinion, the choruses from the worst songs, or for the most commercial ones, are more coherent, structure wise, with their songs than the choruses from those "more metal songs". I see no break in all the pain or in this life, we will remember, house...

But I see it in the ones that I named before. It's almost as if they were thinking "wow, we're going too metal here, lets slow down things for a while".

This is making those songs go from almost excellent to a wtf? Though I still join voices because the rest of the song is pretty good.

Call My Name is the worst offender of this.

And Follow Me is the opposite but equally guilty. Starts off all moody and acoustic, then “ramps up” to something totally generic.

 

[eochaid]

Been listening the album again. My God, ITL is such a terrible song in every fucking way. Fake 200%.

CMN is an excellent song buried under the mountains of autotune, weak choruses and just plain bad decision-making in the recording and post-recording stages.

That last chorus is fucking terrible. WTF were they thinking to belive that was right?

 

[A88]

I can't believe how many same-sounding choruses they decided to put on this album.

Something good is happening, then some shit happens, everything slows down, we have generic chords in the background, autotune is in with full force, drummer plays the most obvious mind-numbing hardrock-radiowhatever pattern... And that pretty much describes 60% of the record.

Like how is it statistically possible to never think something along the lines of "ok guys, lets go double time on this one and I'll turn on dem growlz"?

 

[eochaid]

Maybe, they tried to please everyone? Like, would new IF fans like I the mask, the song if the chorus followed the same patterm (growls, etc) as the verses? They probably think the answer is a no.

 

[DE4life]

Choruses are OK on Follow Me (but the massive autotuning is horrible), ITM, I Am Above, Burn, Deep Inside and Stay With Me. Everything else ranges from bad to atrocious. ITL is the worst offender by far. I think it's genuinely the shittiest, most irritating and grating chorus they've ever done. Worse than Scream. It makes me want to punch Anders in the face.

ITM and Burn flow quite well into chorus imo. Decent enough transitions. All the Pain is really bad though. Chorus is shit and doesn't flow from the verse at all.

 

[miniroch]

I would add Voices, it is much better compared to those tempo breaking "who am I?" from ITM.
Plus, I actually wonder if the lyrics don't make a loop with SWM (voices from the edge of the earth, reminding myself to breath slow, vs low pitch breathe in, breathe out, breathe in life thing in SWM). Probably not, since it's modern Anders' songwriting, but well, just a thought.

Also, when was the last time they made a chorus-less song? TCP has kind of a weird structure, but it repeats both "between love and hate" and "trials and tribulations" twice. I can only thing of Artifacts of the Black Rain, but I'm almost certain there were some others.

 

[eochaid]

Choruses are OK on Follow Me (but the massive autotuning is horrible), ITM, I Am Above, Burn, Deep Inside and Stay With Me. Everything else ranges from bad to atrocious. ITL is the worst offender by far. I think it's genuinely the shittiest, most irritating and grating chorus they've ever done. Worse than Scream. It makes me want to punch Anders in the face.

ITM and Burn flow quite well into chorus imo. Decent enough transitions. All the Pain is really bad though. Chorus is shit and doesn't flow from the verse at all.

I really don't see how the choruses from ITM, Burn or Voices have anything to do with the rest of the song.

 

[DE4life]

ITM flows in fine. Drums link those two parts very well. Burn has the pre-chorus where it slows down and Anders does his "NEVER LEARRRNNN" parts before the chorus hits. Again, it's fine.

I agree with Voices and did not include it for that reason!

 

[eochaid]

ITM flows in fine

ITM goes from modern In Flames ASOP style in the verses to Rise Against punk rock in the chorus. There are two different rock styles into the same song and for no reason. They also have that good interlude after the first verse and then they let it go to waste.

 

[DE4life]

I don't really have a problem with ITM, at least the chorus keeps up the pace of the song. It's more bothersome to me when the chorus suddenly slows down the tempo. ITM at least has a mixture of cleans & screams, which reminded me of a SOAPF type chorus.