New album Foregone out February 2023

[eochaid]

Now I have a headache. Ouch. I couldn't even finish the second chorus.

 

[ciko_gfb]

Say what you want I really don't care, I respect and love the originals but to me, new versions are not bad. I actually listen them more often then the originals.

Also, just listened the new vocal sounds you put here @DE4life. I don't know if the original melody was like this but I love the vocal melodies (I think this is what they call, or acapella IDK) at "Am I forced to have any regret" part. Really good.

 

[DE4life]

Bruh, it sounds like an AI machine being trained how to sing in time with basic musical beats.

 

[eochaid]

Man. It's your fault. You'¡re dealing with people who think that Anders' live cleans are flawless. Once that they've reached that level of cognitive dissonace there's no evidence that you can present that will make them say that they're wrong.

 

[DE4life]

Sometimes I think these guys have actually been trolling me for years, and I've just never noticed.

 

[eochaid]

It's the other way. They probably think that you're trolling them and I'm just a hater. Because, there's no other way that we can't see how Anders' is the epitome of perfection.

 

[DE4life]

As I said, if you listen to those OFTW vocals and think they're okay, let alone good, there's no hope. He sounds like he's trying to do the vocals whilst distracted by the television or something, completely out of rhythm. Then there's the use of autotune which is just laughable. Benson could not have been involved in that as, for all his faults, he uses autotune in a quite specific way. This is like one of Anders' kids gave it a go and they just said "good enough" and put it in the end product. There's also volume fluctuations throughout which are quite noticeable on the original track too. Not to mention a few occasions where it seems like words are spliced together from different sessions, or cut in such a way that they sound extremely unnatural.

It's amateur hour on every level. Listening to them actually made me angry.

 

[galvanized]

If the music sounded good I could tolerate the vocals. (I actually like the new Pinball Map verse singing vocals). But it sounds small, dry, flat, cheap, compressed — all the bad things.

Play the first track, Themes and Variations in D-Minor. It sounds amazing sonically. Like typical for an orchestral recording today. High dynamic range, just amazingly pleasant.

Then the next song, Only for the Weak starts and sounds like TOTAL SHIT. So compressed, distorted and amateurish sounding. The juxtaposition between a good sound on Track 1 and the trash on Tracks 2-5 is too much. I have no choice but to be disgusted. They designed the EP for us to be disappointed. Maybe they shouldn’t have put Track 1 on there at all if they didn’t want us to think that way.

I think IF really missed a chance to go hard and record orchestral versions (like Metallica) or other cool re-imagined versions. Maybe they blew the budget on that one song or they cheaper out for other reasons. Even acoustic versions or banjo versions (remember Bjorn is very multi-talented) would have been cool.

 

[eochaid]

Now, Imagine all of those live shows without the backup of the instruments. If he sounds like this, at the studio, try to guess how he reallly sounds live when there's nothing to hide the mistakes that he makes.

 

[DE4life]

I think IF really missed a chance to go hard and record orchestral versions (like Metallica) or other cool re-imagined versions. Maybe they blew the budget on that one song or they cheaper out for other reasons. Even acoustic versions or banjo versions (remember Bjorn is very multi-talented) would have been cool.

That is effort far beyond what either Anders or Bjorn are willing to put in. I genuinely don't think either of them wanted to do the rerecordings. I think it was a record label cash in that they felt they had to go along with, and they put the absolute bare minimum of effort in. They didn't give a shit about the end result. They've been involved in the metal scene for long enough, and listen to enough good metal albums, to know what 'good' sounds like. It wouldn't surprise me if the pair of them recorded their parts in one take and then just left without even listening to the final result. That's pretty much how Tanner described his participation in it. "I did everything in a day and dipped" were more or less his exact words.

 

[galvanized]

I think it was a record label cash in that they felt they had to go along with, and they put the absolute bare minimum of effort in.

Fair enough, if it was fulfilling a record contract (like an EP), I could see that. But that just lends more credence to us ignoring it. They spent a day recording it, I spent a day listening to it. Sounds fair.

 

[DE4life]

Fair enough, if it was fulfilling a record contract (like an EP), I could see that. But that just lends more credence to us ignoring it. They spent a day recording it, I spent a day listening to it. Sounds fair.

Yes, I should not have resurrected those evil spirits. Better left alone.

 

[eochaid]

I'm not so sure about the record label thing. As ar as I know, since a long time now, they just make deals for single records. So, I'm not sure what kind of pressure the label could have put upon them. Maybe someone at the label came with the idea and they agreed because they had nothing else to do and that was just it.

 

[galvanized]

Maybe it was a way to make some COVID relief money since they couldn’t tour? Cut costs to the absolute minimum to make as much money as possible? I could sympathize I guess.

 

[eochaid]

Probably. Also, a way to bring the album to new fans that, maybe, were not that fond of the old style.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Simply put, there's too much difference between the old and new tracks in terms of the instrument timings for me to put the old vocals onto the new track. In theory it'd be possible with a lot of work, but it's really not worth it. Here's the original track with the new vocals, lmao. It's awful. Thank god we didn't have the modern version of Anders in 2000. Also including the new track vocal stem to prove how fucking abominable they are. And this isn't a case of "everyone has an opinion". If you think these vocals are in any way good you are simply wrong. Shove your music theory up your arse whilst you're at it.

I think there are some tempo differences between the two versions of OFTW, but mismatched pacing aside, I don't know why this is more abominable than anything else Anders has done? I think the backing vocal harmonies are unnecessary. To me this seems to be a case of whether or not you like Anders' recent clean vocals rather than this performance being particularly bad. I don't love or hate them, personally -- they're just kind of there.

Granted, I happen to think Anders' performance on Clayman is awkward. The amount of weird mumbling he does on that record diminishes several of the songs, imo (it's also why I don't think Jester Script Transfigured is one of the better songs on Whoracle).

 

[Vermyn]

Every time I check back on here and there are like 20 messages, I think the album leaked haha

 

[The Grayfox]

I like the video but I don't think that the song is that great. Or, to say it otherwise, it doesn't make it into my top 30 IF songs. Maybe even more. Why? Because songs transmit different things to different people.

Hm. Maybe it's time we all made our top 30 lists. Then we can argue some more.

Every time I check back on here and there are like 20 messages, I think the album leaked haha

I'm quite surprised that it hasn't. People already have physical copies.

 

[The Grayfox]

Anyone who has the desire (and time) can use pubmeeple.com's ranking engine. Just put in all of IF's songs and it will ask you which song you prefer, eventually giving you your ranked list. I've used it to rank my games before and it was pretty handy. It takes a while though. i'm going to give it a go tonight and I'll post my top 20 or 30.

There are probably other ranking engines out there, I just know that one pretty well.

 

[eochaid]

Hm. Maybe it's time we all made our top 30 lists. Then we can argue some more.




I'm quite surprised that it hasn't. People already have physical copies.

I can do the list but, apart from the top 5, I'm not sure if I can put the rest of them by preference.