I agree.
I'm not saying this forum is completely without elitist overtones, but compared to those folks we're a bunch of fanboys.
Pretty much
some of the doomlords on the old Everdying forums were vicious. Basically if it wasn't Lunar Strain it was a pile of shit. They were only into the darkest of black/death metal and as soon as any band gained mainstream attention they instantly became terrible.
Clayman was a sell out but it still sounded good. Reroute sounded like a sell out but it’s obvious they were all into it. So I could agree that STYE was the true sell out album.
N*Flamez
STYE is definitely the "sellout" album for me, if there is one at all. It's not a bad album but it's very obviously (imo anyway) orientated towards a specific market that significantly deviates from anything they put out before or afterwards. Clayman was still way too outside of the mainstream for me to consider it "sellout", although they were moving in that direction.
Clayman was a border between old if and new..
I think it's hard to put broad borders on In Flames' work.
Lunar/Sub - would class this as "early era" In Flames, didn't include most of the well known band members so more like demos than actual albums.
TJR/Whoracle - these two flow well into each other, similar themes and overall sound. IMO Whoracle was the last real MDM album IF put out.
Colony/Clayman - moving more towards traditional heavy/melodic metal than melodic death metal at this point. Cleaner sound with more straightforward songwriting, lyrics starting to become more introspective. Dual guitar melodies still taking precedent over vocals.
R2R - mixture of older IF melodies (scaled back and buried in the mix) and newer focus on vocals, particularly clean. Lyrics are also now much simpler. The last album that, imo, had those 'old school' melodies across the record. I'd still classify this as traditional heavy metal but the sound is a depature from the previous two albums.
STYE - total stab at the alternative metal market. Dual guitar melodies significantly reduced. Lyrics embarrassing at times. The only thing I will say about STYE is that it has a very unique sound, particularly with the keys, which identify its tracks almost as soon as they come on. You would never mistake a STYE song for being anything other than a STYE song. Not a bad album but at the time it was released if you were to take Anders' vocals out nobody would have said this was In Flames.
CC - Not sure what to make of this album as far as the direction it ended up going in. Guitars are much more involved, keys reduced, powerful screams/growls along with the usual cleans in the chorus. Lyrically the best album since Clayman with much more focus on external, interesting stuff rather than Anders complaining about how shit his life apparently is. Sounds totally different from STYE. Back to being heavy metal w/MDM influence.
ASOP/SOAPF - much softer production than CC. Moving more towards a rock/metal hybrid sound. Clean vocals becoming much more prominent. I always saw SOAPF as a much improved version of ASOP, with vocals & production fixed.
SC - No idea what they were thinking here. Don't know how to define this. A total 180 on SOAPF.
Battles - Take SC out and the progression from SOAPF to Battles wouldn't have been that surprising. Similar type of album, just without the inspiration, creativity or passion.
Next album - who fucking knows? Probably ska/reggae. Anders will grow his dreads back and start smoking blunts at shows. "hey mons, dis be clayman ya?" - Krofius says it's amazing and the best work they've ever done. Slave becomes a rastafarian. Ciko says Anders is the second coming of Bob Marley. I sigh and resume listening to Colony.
