New album Foregone out February 2023

[ThePhobiac]

@burank666 I'm so envious. I want to talk to Bjorn. The last time I spoke with him I told him he was one of my biggest inspirations as a guitarist, and he apologized and told me there were much better ways to spend my time.

 

[burank666]

@burank666 I'm so envious. I want to talk to Bjorn. The last time I spoke with him I told him he was one of my biggest inspirations as a guitarist, and he apologized and told me there were much better ways to spend my time.

It was a pleasure to talk with him. Unlike Anders, he was really enjoying the interview or it seemed so to me

 

[The Grayfox]

I don't think Anders really enjoys talking to people. That's not a shot at him. I don't really enjoy it either if I'm being honest. Unfortunately for him, being the frontman of a band generally means more interviews, press stuff, etc. But even talking to him as a fan and watching other people talk to him, you could see he wasn't having a great time. He probably just isn't very social.

Bjorn on the other hand is very outgoing and you can tell he is more of a 'people person' than Anders is. The last time I talked to any members of the band in person, it was Anders, Bjorn, Peter and Daniel. Bjorn and Peter were very friendly while Daniel and Anders were much more reserved. Jesper was nowhere in sight. Funny story, one time in San Francisco, I actually saw Jesper jogging away from fans who were coming up to talk to him. That's how social he is. Or was, at the time. I believe that was the same show when Johan came out and played bass on Behind Space -- which I had totally forgotten about until now.

 

[The Grayfox]

10 Mirror's Truth
32 The Jester Race

Oh boy...

God, I can't believe I'm going to go listen to these songs. I'll report back later. If I make it through.

I tried. Filtered Truth isn't bad. It has some interesting parts. Maybe with subsequent listens I could get on board. Not With Eyes Wide Open though. I did not enjoy that. I also listened to the title track and Monsters in the Ballroom and nothing was happening there for me. Out of the four songs, Filtered Truth was the most enjoyable.

But I'm weird also. I enjoy We Will Remember and Not Alone, so...

 

[burank666]

I don't think Anders really enjoys talking to people. That's not a shot at him. I don't really enjoy it either if I'm being honest. Unfortunately for him, being the frontman of a band generally means more interviews, press stuff, etc. But even talking to him as a fan and watching other people talk to him, you could see he wasn't having a great time. He probably just isn't very social.

Bjorn on the other hand is very outgoing and you can tell he is more of a 'people person' than Anders is. The last time I talked to any members of the band in person, it was Anders, Bjorn, Peter and Daniel. Bjorn and Peter were very friendly while Daniel and Anders were much more reserved. Jesper was nowhere in sight. Funny story, one time in San Francisco, I actually saw Jesper jogging away from fans who were coming up to talk to him. That's how social he is. Or was, at the time. I believe that was the same show when Johan came out and played bass on Behind Space -- which I had totally forgotten about until now.

I was the tour guide of THE in Istanbul, i hang out with the band for almost 3.5 days. Whole band was so friendly.

 

[The Grayfox]

Oh, thats cool dude. Peter is my guy. He's so friendly it's unreal.

So that would've been right before the album came out, right? Did they by chance mention when they might record more?

 

[burank666]

Oh, thats cool dude. Peter is my guy. He's so friendly it's unreal.

So that would've been right before the album came out, right? Did they by chance mention when they might record more?

I think they will release something this year Ep or an album.

 

[Pallbearer]

Well yeah Anders has said he's an introvert who became a frontman sort of accidentally. The designated singer of his first band cancelled on them or just didn't show up so Anders thought he could give growling a try. He's also admitted during the first tours he found his role to be really uncomfortable sometimes.

I quite like The Filtered Truth. Could've been a CC or STYE song, at least with a bit different arrangement.

 

[burank666]

Okay hear me out... I just read the lyrics to paralyzed as I listened to it, and I'm convinced that Anders wrote the song about how he felt about the band at the time - paralyzed with fear that they're stuck going down a road they can't turn back from - change, backlash, change, backlash but that the band has to just keep going.

"Vultures descend, feeding on us" - this forum
"It's like we're on our own to figure out, cast out" - they've got to decide themselves where they go musically as the fans have turned their backs time and time again
"Rewind, there's no time" - they can't just return to "the good old days"
"We're only taking turns passing around the world, it's how it's always been" - they're still just doing what they've always done, tour and play for the fans
"Out of excuses, will we understand that we're on our own" - we can't keep having to justify doing what we do, we just have to accept that we will make the critics and fans happy
"This time we have found the wasteland" - a commentary of the recording process of the album itself, how it took a turn for the worse both in terms of band relationships and musical cohesion.

Check out the lyrics for Filtered Truth:

"Were all in this together, So I was told All for one, one for none."

I think this song can be about the tension between the band as well.

 

[Pallbearer]

Also, I did not find the interview with the aforementioned "we were playing the demo in the car and were surprised to hear [X] " part, but I thought this track-by-track commentary of Siren Charms with Anders, Peter and Björn was rather interesting.

https://www.mysweetforum.net/?p=1548

(The introduction is in French, but the actual commentary is in English)

Funny story, one time in San Francisco, I actually saw Jesper jogging away from fans who were coming up to talk to him. That's how social he is. Or was, at the time.

I haven't watched the Used and Abused documentary in ages, but wasn't there a bit where someone tried asking him a few questions and Jesper just said "no comment"

 

[Jester Slave]

Wait, you guys are actually real about your song interpretations? Paralyzed is clearly about the world/Earth itself and how we are pissing it away. In fact, almost the entire record is about that and existential crisis. A bunch of hopelessness with a motif of a helping hand, which is offered to you and which may drag you out from the lost and hopeless. FIltered Truth is harder to interpret, but it sounds like Anders is calling out the people who would rather stay charmed by the siren, than opening their eyes and see - among others - their own shortcomings. It's more fitting to interpret some drunken global warming denial or a drug addict, than Anders telling Daniel or Peter that do not ignore a life that's real.



From 8 mins he talks a little bit about his lyrical inspirations.

Also, take Fear Is The Weakness as a counter-example. Sure, out of comraderie they denied it, but that song is clearly about Jesper, or let's say heavily inspired by what happened between them.

 

[galvanized]

Thanks Pallbearer

https://www.mysweetforum.net/?p=1548
11. Filtered Truth
Anders: « Filtered Truth, the ending of the album. It took a few turns in the studio. I think we got stuck on the writing process and didn’t really know where we should take this song. And throwing things around a little bit on computer and « ok let’s start like this » and then « oh doesn’t that sound a little bit like too much like AC/DC? » We were all like « what’s wrong with that? AC/DC are great » and just let’s do it, don’t be afraid. So it’s our tribute. But then we turned it into – for me at least, the chorus – I saw myself in a Britsih pub with a bunch of friends after, or before, a game of soccer and everybody was – you know – screaming and singing together. Type of the chorus I was aiming for – that feeling. And yeah, that’s the album Siren Charms. »

Björn: « There were two songs on the album where we had to work a lot to get the arrangements right. One was « Siren Charms », the title track, and the other was the ending track « Filtered Truth ». It was a sort of a bitch to get it right because it came in so many shapes and forms. We had an extremely hard intro. We thought, « Maybe that’s too much and we should strip it all away? » Then, we came down to this and that, thinking we should do an acoustic start. It was a big struggle. All of a sudden, when everything came into place, the vocals just flew in there. It was effortless as soon as we got the arrangements right. It’s a cool thing. It’s a sing-a-long without being cheesy. It sums up the album. It’s got a nice little solo I’m happy with. »

 

[galvanized]

For what it's worth, I didn't take his response as dismissive. More like there just wasn't a whole lot for him to say (especially if he forgot how the song went, lol). It's very rare you'll hear artists shit on their own song, much less In Flames, who go out of their way to not put down any of their own material.

Yeah, listening again I agree.

 

[burank666]

btw, did anyone listen to cyhra's live instagram feed with Jesper & Jake? As far as i remember it was a couple months ago.

 

[drawntoblack]

It was almost impossible to catch up with the volume of pages you guys cranked out here in the past 10 days.

I wouldn't bother taking lyrics too seriously, especially lyrics/vocals that were made with a big name producer in charge. Those things are very prone to last-moment changes, sometimes a word or even a syllable doesn't fit right so you improvise an alternative line on the spot in the next take, things snowball from there, etc. This isn't a strike at Anders, just giving context on how these things typically work. If they had everything set in stone prior to going to the studio they wouldn't need a vocal producer.

Nothing music-related evolved like how vocal production evolved. It's not unusual for a singer to record literally hundreds of takes, all of them being slight variations with syllables fitting in different spots, and then the producer would have a free reign on cherry picking syllable by syllable without artist's direct input. That's how majority of modern pop music is made and while I'm not saying In Flames do things the same way necessarily, given the high profile of the producer and the very pop-oriented approach to their vocals it's likely in the ballpark.

 

[DE4life]

There have been a bunch of new replies since last night alone, which is unusual, so I thought we'd actually had an album leak instead it's just people debating Siren Charms' crappy lyrics. Unfortunate.

 

[TheJestersDoor]

To be fair i'd rather be discussing a leak too, I'm very surprised it's still not happened since people got the vinyl early

 

[galvanized]

instead it's just people debating Siren Charms' crappy lyrics.

To be fair, Siren Charms lyrics are pretty decent and probably the best lyrics we’ve gotten in 10 years.

 

[galvanized]

btw, did anyone listen to cyhra's live instagram feed with Jesper & Jake? As far as i remember it was a couple months ago.

Check the Cyhra 3 thread but I don’t think so

 

[Jester Slave]

There have been a bunch of new replies since last night alone, which is unusual, so I thought we'd actually had an album leak instead it's just people debating Siren Charms' crappy lyrics. Unfortunate.

It's funny, because for the first time in a long time I thought that we are actually discussing something interesting. Anders cares about his lyrics, so even if some of them are braineless, at least you know that it's not futile to search for a meaning there somewhere. I disagree that Anders would just throw in random words for the sake of it; it may explain some oddities, but by and large the lyrics will have a meaning in his case.