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

[DE4life]

To be fair, I can see what Anders is saying. Lots of full stops that last for a few seconds each, mid-tempo verses with only muttering vocals laid over them, and a repetitive chorus vocal melody. It's an awesome song on the record, but I can imagine it'd be a little dull live, at least from the band's perspective. Aside from the synth solo in the bridge, there's no real point in the song where things get kicked up a notch.

I don't really buy those as legitimate excuses tbh. They've amended a ton of their songs for live performance, so why not Free Fall? It wouldn't make much difference to take out the stops and just continue on. In fact it'd probably improve the song. As for muttering verses.... Bullet Ride? Square Nothing? Satellites & Astronauts? Fucking TCP? don't think that's an issue. Most of their songs have repetitive choruses so I'd be surprised if that was a problem.

I really think with a few very small tweaks the song would sound great live. Increase the tempo a little as they do with Episode 666, for example. Cut the unnecessary dead air. Switch up vocal melodies in the chorus a little, as has been done in songs like Black & White. Nothing major and the song would likely sound really good. The intro alone with those crunching guitars and synths would be sweet.

The real reason is probably just that back in the day they were too lazy to adapt the song, and nowadays they have the excuse of it being an old and obscure track. Considering some of the shit they've played live there's no good excuse for Free Fall having never had a single outing, imo.

 

[DE4life]

It's really funny to me how so many review/news sites still refer to In Flames as a "melodic death metal" band. They haven't been that since Whoracle, 21 years ago. Colony and Clayman weren't melodic death metal to me. The albums after 2000 most definitely are not. Less than 50% of the band's entire discography, at least half of which occured when most of the current members were not even in the band, was MDM, yet that's what they're labeled as even in the present day. Battles is barely metal, let alone MDM.

 

[galvanized]

I know what you’re saying about Colony but it’s still really aggressive with strong vocals so I give it a free pass. In fact, I would say with Colony they were still re-defining MDM from the inside.

Battles — not metal
Siren Charms — not metal

 

[galvanized]

Goliaths Disarm Their Davids — one of IF best songs ever. The verse riffs are insane with some weird syncopation stuff going on that trips out my mind. The left channel almost sounds like a third guitar playing at a few points in the verse but maybe it’s just the left guitar doing something a bit different.

Not a single bland power chord in the entire song. Every chord has such good harmonic content. Shit is amazing. They were in genius mode when they wrote this.

 

[krofius]

I know what you’re saying about Colony but it’s still really aggressive with strong vocals so I give it a free pass. In fact, I would say with Colony they were still re-defining MDM from the inside.

Battles — not metal
Siren Charms — not metal

Lol all of In Flames albums are Metal, they're not all melodic death metal though, obviously.

 

[DE4life]

I know what you’re saying about Colony but it’s still really aggressive with strong vocals so I give it a free pass. In fact, I would say with Colony they were still re-defining MDM from the inside.

Battles — not metal
Siren Charms — not metal

I've always said Colony is just pure heavy metal. People hear the vocals and automatically tag it as MDM, but how many death metal bands have you heard with vocals like Colony or Clayman? I can't think of any. TJR and Whoracle had a much lower vocal register.

However, even if you do count Colony & Clayman as MDM, that still means the band only had 4 (I guess 5 if you count Lunar Strain) full MDM albums, with 7 that have nothing to do with MDM (soon to be 8). They've objectively released far more non-MDM music than MDM, and the non-MDM is all more recent... so it's just pure laziness and stupidity for websites to still tag them as "melodic death metal". I give them a pass if they add "pioneers" but it's still a callback to a genre that is completely irrelevent to their current sound.

Goliaths Disarm Their Davids — one of IF best songs ever. The verse riffs are insane with some weird syncopation stuff going on that trips out my mind. The left channel almost sounds like a third guitar playing at a few points in the verse but maybe it’s just the left guitar doing something a bit different.

Not a single bland power chord in the entire song. Every chord has such good harmonic content. Shit is amazing. They were in genius mode when they wrote this.

Goliaths is a great track. Weird that it was included on an EP as opposed to a full album though. Kind of like Eraser being on the TMT EP instead of ASOP.

 

[krofius]

Black-Ash Inheritance EP was separately recorded and released shortly previous to Whoracle though so it makes sense being on EP as opposed to being on Whoracle. TMT EP was probably due to the Japan bonus stuff that they have to do. It's a weird phenomenon though with many bands, I always feel like bonus tracks are always really strong tracks, and not just weird tracks that doesn't fit on the album. Same as with on Siren Charms, 2 really strong songs as bonus tracks, if I remember correctly they said they were much weirder songs they didnt feel fit the album or something.

 

[Sister Of Destruction]

Good old times

 

[galvanized]

People hear the vocals and automatically tag it as MDM, but how many death metal bands have you heard with vocals like Colony or Clayman? I can't think of any. TJR and Whoracle had a much lower vocal register.

To me it’s not the low vocal registers that define MDM but more the emotional content. Look at Anders, Tomas Lindberg, Stanne, Henke Forss (Subterranean EP and Dawn of course). Mostly higher register, at least no Cookie Monster vocals. But the reason to me why they were so good is because their screams and growls were variable, voices occasionally broke. Basically they sounded convicted and maybe a little crazy.

I love harsh vocals. But there are a lot of MDM 2.0 bands like Norther and Wintersun, all those type bands that have totally solid, low register harsh vocals and aren’t as good as Anders and these other guys. Those vocalists sound so consistent that they convey nothing to me. I really need that inconsistent sound, something kind of dirty, something that shows max fucking effort. So I don’t care if you are high or low register. If you are going all out then I’m down.

 

[galvanized]

Good old times

Hell yeah. Amazing song. I have major respect for any band that launches into a guitar solo less than 1:00 minute into the song.

The artwork should be Colony, pretty sure this was a bonus track re-recording for that.

 

[eochaid]

Black-Ash Inheritance EP was separately recorded and released shortly previous to Whoracle though so it makes sense being on EP as opposed to being on Whoracle. TMT EP was probably due to the Japan bonus stuff that they have to do. It's a weird phenomenon though with many bands, I always feel like bonus tracks are always really strong tracks, and not just weird tracks that doesn't fit on the album. Same as with on Siren Charms, 2 really strong songs as bonus tracks, if I remember correctly they said they were much weirder songs they didnt feel fit the album or something.

Gyroscope is in the black ash ep.

 

[DE4life]

Black-Ash Inheritance EP was separately recorded and released shortly previous to Whoracle though so it makes sense being on EP as opposed to being on Whoracle. TMT EP was probably due to the Japan bonus stuff that they have to do. It's a weird phenomenon though with many bands, I always feel like bonus tracks are always really strong tracks, and not just weird tracks that doesn't fit on the album. Same as with on Siren Charms, 2 really strong songs as bonus tracks, if I remember correctly they said they were much weirder songs they didnt feel fit the album or something.

Most of the bonus/EP tracks for IF are understandable to me. As you say Goliaths (and acoustic medley) were recorded before Whoracle, so understandable that they're on an EP (even though Gyroscope is also on it, and that made the album). Man Made God is a cool track but doesn't really fit on Colony imo so I understand why they'd choose to have it as a bonus. Clad in Shadows '99 is a remake of an older song so, again, makes sense to be a bonus - although Behind Space '99 is on the actual album, so... yeah.

World of Promises and Strong and Smart are covers so, again, makes perfect sense for them to be Clayman bonus tracks. Watch Them Feed is a really weird song that doesn't feel like it fits on an IF album so I can see why that's on an EP. Land of Confusion is a cover so, again, makes sense that it isn't on an album.

I think Discover Me Like Emptiness is the only bonus off STYE? I think it's a really nice song, although I can see why they left it off the album. Should have replaced Bottled with DMLE though. Don't think CC had any bonus tracks?

Then we get to ASOP. The Mirror's Truth EP literally contains three songs in Abnegation, Eraser and Tilt which are better than pretty much anything on the actual album - especially Eraser. Granted they don't fit the theme of shit lyrics and bad vocals, but for fuck's sake. They made Abnegation worse from the early demo version, though, so maybe best that didn't become an album track. Eraser and Tilt should 100% have been on the album though. A weird experimental track like TCP should have been on the EP, but then Anders wouldn't have been able to show off his crooning broodiness in all its "glory".

SOAPF was another that had no bonus tracks to my knowledge, other than instrumentals and remixes.

Become the Sky and The Chase are easily two of the best tracks on SC for me. The only reason they don't fit on SC is because they have energy which doesn't come from trying too hard to be "heavy" - and apparently that's not what they were going for.

A similar story with Battles. Greatest Greed and Us Against the World are decent tracks. Significantly better than the likes of Underneath My 4Skin, Here Until Forever or Save Me. They'd fit fine on the album too, so, it's more like Battles Extended than bonus tracks.

For me the bonus/EP tracks made sense up until ASOP, as they were pretty much always covers, remakes or odd songs that didn't necessarily fit on an album but were good enough to be released. Since the TMT EP though IF seem to have gone down the route of making the best songs bonus tracks. SOAPF is the only recent exception, and that's just because every song (except All For Me) was so awesome that it had to be on the main album.

 

[DE4life]

To me it’s not the low vocal registers that define MDM but more the emotional content. Look at Anders, Tomas Lindberg, Stanne, Henke Forss (Subterranean EP and Dawn of course). Mostly higher register, at least no Cookie Monster vocals. But the reason to me why they were so good is because their screams and growls were variable, voices occasionally broke. Basically they sounded convicted and maybe a little crazy.

I love harsh vocals. But there are a lot of MDM 2.0 bands like Norther and Wintersun, all those type bands that have totally solid, low register harsh vocals and aren’t as good as Anders and these other guys. Those vocalists sound so consistent that they convey nothing to me. I really need that inconsistent sound, something kind of dirty, something that shows max fucking effort. So I don’t care if you are high or low register. If you are going all out then I’m down.

Honestly I'm not even sure the "MDM" label was ever accurate for bands like IF, DT, Soilwork, Arch Enemy, etc. If you listen to TJR/Whoracle I'd say they're closer to black metal than death metal - particularly in terms of themes, imagery, vocals and dark/folky melodies. But I guess melodic black metal didn't sound as cool? Whoracle is much of the same although with more straight heavy metal elements, whilst Colony is basically just heavy/power metal with black metal sounding vocals. Labels start becoming redundant at this point though

I mean, I really like a lot of bands with the MDM label, but I like very few actual death metal bands. Possibly not any at all, actually. Meanwhile I do have some black metal and a lot of power and traditional heavy metal in my library.

I don't hear that much death metal influence in bands like IF, DT, Arch Enemy, Soilwork, etc, save for occasional drum blast beats. MDM as a genre is, to me anyway, more a fusion of heavy, power and black metal. If you're going to label that era of music I'd say "Gothenberg Metal" is probably a better label than Melodic Death Metal, which I'm pretty sure only picked up usage because it sounded kind of cool to the underground trve elitists at the time.

 

[Jester Slave]

Free Fall is one of my favorites, but I've always wondered how'd they solve the choruses live, because they always starts with a scream. It's part of the reason it's so cool to begin with.

 

[DE4life]

Free Fall is one of my favorites, but I've always wondered how'd they solve the choruses live, because they always starts with a scream. It's part of the reason it's so cool to begin with.

Just pipe in backing track vocals like they do with a ton of their other songs. Black & White comes to mind.

 

[krofius]

Gyroscope is in the black ash ep.

Yes, and they included it on Whoracle.

 

[eochaid]

So... There's no real reason to not have included gdtd into whoracle. Unless it didn't fit into that album.

 

[DE4life]

Watching the Cloud Connected video reminded me of really good times following In Flames. Obviously it's a great song but that period was really exciting for me. I started listening to the band some time in '99, and at the time here in the UK that kind of music was not on the radar at all. I'm absolutely sure not a single person at my high school listened to IF, DT, Soilwork or anything remotely similar. The closest you had was shit like Papa Roach, Slipknot, Korn, etc. At the time I loved listening to something so obscure and different.

Then around 2002 bands like IF and Soilwork started cracking the mainstream. Their music videos (Trigger & Rejection Role specifically) started coming on commercial TV stations. I can remember being really happy seeing IF and Soilwork on satellite TV, as they seemed to be making it into the mainstream and I genuinely felt they deserved it. After that things went kinda crazy, and by Come Clarity even my friends were listening to them. Suddenly IF were a huge deal in the rock and metal world, headlining tours & festivals across the globe, touring with bands like Metallica, etc. That was a great time.

Obviously it's been mostly downhill from there, but I feel kinda bad for the people who either weren't fans during that period or couldn't accept or appreciate IF's shift from an obscure underground metal act to one of the stars of the metal world. It was an amazing time to be a fan of the band if you still liked what they were doing post-Clayman, which I did. A bit of a shame it's ended up like this, a shell of a band limping along, shitting out turds like Siren Charms and Battles. Can't erase the good times though.

 

[JesterSlaveSucks]

de4lifes autobiography hits store shelves on monday don't miss out

 

[ThePhobiac]

My brother and I would watch Headbanger’s Ball every time it came on in 2004 just for a chance to see “Cloud Connected.” I think the first time we saw it we were waiting for some Papa Roach video, then this Swedish band came on and we were like “wait a second, this is incredible.” The rest is history.

I remember spending the last year of high school listening to both Come Clarity and DT’s The Gallery. Such a good time. I think I would’ve continued to love the rest of IF’s material to this day if I hadn’t seen all the negative comments on the “The Mirror’s Truth” video premiere in 2008. I still like the music just as much as I did back then, but now I’m always subconsciously aware of all that negativity when I listen to any IF these days. It spoils the experience a little.