There was a Fredrik Nordström interview where he talked about how In Flames were always wanting to change their sound, and how he tried telling them, I don't remember his exact words but something like "Sure, we can change, but I think we should develop the current sound, start from the existing foundation". Honestly I think that would've quite probably worked better for In Flames. I can see Reroute being a logical continuation to Clayman, but after that they've basically been all over the place.
And why, oh why didn't they want to keep the Come Clarity production team for ASOP?
Congratulations to Ciko!
Nordstrom knew what he was doing. He just wanted the band to put in more work than they were willing to commit to. Rather than have an attitude of "we have a reputation and are proud of this, so we should focus on bringing the best out of ourselves", IF attitude has always been "we'll just make whatever we feel like making at the time, and hopefully people will like it".
Whether you agree with the first or second attitude is open for debate. Some would say their attitude to making music is the right one. Basically, do whatever you want to do even if it turns out to be shit. Others would suggest the first attitude, with a more careful and planned approach, is how one should treat a job. In Flames have in a lot of ways treated their career like a hobby, and maybe that's why Anders and Bjorn have been going strong for so many years. And I say "going strong" only in the sense they have never had a hiatus of any kind, not that the music itself has been strong throughout.
I believed for a long time that they purposefully pivoted to a more commercial sound for the big bucks... but nowadays I'm not so convinced. I think they just changed their sound because they didn't want to put in as much effort as they had been previously. Jesper and Bjorn, at least. They saw other bands getting loads of exposure and success with far less effort instrumentally and thought, fuck it, we can do that too. Anders was the only one who really wanted to stretch the limits of his 'instrument', and so the band ended up revolving around that. Can't really speak for Daniel or Peter as they weren't ever direct songwriters.
I'd say that only changed after Siren Charms - moving to the likes of Benson as producer is clearly a calculated move, as he has no connection to their past music in any way.
Production has always been a total shitshow since they left Nordstrom. Not all bad, but wildly inconsistent.
Reroute - muddy guitars, muddy vocals, muddy everything really
STYE - that snare, fuck. Production as a whole far too flat, the album sounds a million times better on Used & Abused
CC - works for the album but draining to listen to at times as it is so in-your-face
ASOP - utter garbage. Embarrassing guitar tone, vocals all wrong
SOAPF - another one where the production works for the album, but very different to what came before it
SC - garbage
Battles - garbage
ITM - slightly improvement on the last two, but still weak
Foregone - most metal production they've had since CC for sure, just a shame about the music
I thought maybe Zombie Inc at first but Resin makes more sense for reasons you mentioned. One of the worst songs on Colony and a really forgettable song overall.
.
!
