New album Foregone out February 2023

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, pleasantly surprised to see Food for the Gods make its way back into the set and it does sound quite good to boot.

 

[drawntoblack]

I'm incapable of taking Anders (or the entire band for that matter) seriously anymore. What's up with that cringe introduction of the song? "6/10 epic", is he throwing random reddit meme buzzwords hoping to stir some kind of reaction out of... japanese people?

 

[DE4life]

Anders' current method of growling works well with the older songs as his voice pre-Colony was generally deeper. BS and FFTG sound quite fine. According to set list.fm it's the first time FFTG has been played in 9 years, so that's cool.

However, it's hilarious that they're touring like they only ever released a handful of singles last year and the actual Foregone album never came out, lmao. They've gone back to rare Whoracle tracks, ASOP songs and even SC songs before they touch their actual new material. I'm fine with it since Foregone is just the musical equivalent of lipstick on a pig, but it's still so weird.

 

[The Grayfox]

I've always thought Anders' introductions and stage banter are awkward. Also, it looks like Food for the Gods may have been a one off? Or they're rotating. But it looks like they might be reverting back to the ever classic combination that everybody loves and no one ever complains about; Graveland and The Hive!

 

[ThePhobiac]

Song sounds good, but it's obvious that they just don't want to play Biosphere like the fans demand.

 

[The Grayfox]

I demand Biosphere! I think that is one song that will genuinely never get played. Then again, I would’ve said that about Stand Ablaze a few years ago…

 

[Jester Slave]

I'm incapable of taking Anders (or the entire band for that matter) seriously anymore. What's up with that cringe introduction of the song? "6/10 epic", is he throwing random reddit meme buzzwords hoping to stir some kind of reaction out of... japanese people?

Yeah, the band was much more serious when they were all drunk as fuck. I can appreciate a drunken singer who can't even recite his lines, but an introverted old dude joking around on the stage? Get out of here bozo!!!

He didn't try to stir up anything, he just said "you're about to see some rare shit" in his own awkward way. Anders can be blamed for a lot of things, but unless pressed by interviewers, he doesn't engage in controversy.

 

[The Grayfox]

I'm going through some old hard drives and burned DVDs (!) from like 20 years ago. I have not found the Everdying Tribute to In Flames yet, but I did find about 5 gigs worth of In Flames bootlegs, mainly from 1998 - 2004 or so, including some of the shows P3 broadcast and some random soundboard recordings from the 2000-2001 U.S. tours. Apparently somebody managed to plug in to the soundboard in Lawrence, Kansas and Denver, Colorado...

The infamous Club Citta 1997 show as well as Osaka 1999 were on a drive. Both of those shows feature some of the best setlists the band ever had. I would argue Club Citta in '97 is the best.

 

[drawntoblack]

Yeah, the band was much more serious when they were all drunk as fuck. I can appreciate a drunken singer who can't even recite his lines, but an introverted old dude joking around on the stage? Get out of here bozo!!!

He didn't try to stir up anything, he just said "you're about to see some rare shit" in his own awkward way. Anders can be blamed for a lot of things, but unless pressed by interviewers, he doesn't engage in controversy.

Nowhere did I imply he was trying to engage in controversy. Just that he is weird as shit and the older he gets the more unfitting it becomes.

 

[DE4life]

I'm going through some old hard drives and burned DVDs (!) from like 20 years ago. I have not found the Everdying Tribute to In Flames yet, but I did find about 5 gigs worth of In Flames bootlegs, mainly from 1998 - 2004 or so, including some of the shows P3 broadcast and some random soundboard recordings from the 2000-2001 U.S. tours. Apparently somebody managed to plug in to the soundboard in Lawrence, Kansas and Denver, Colorado...

The infamous Club Citta 1997 show as well as Osaka 1999 were on a drive. Both of those shows feature some of the best setlists the band ever had. I would argue Club Citta in '97 is the best.

I think Club Citta is '98, assuming it's this show:

In Flames Setlist at CLUB CITTA', Kawasaki

Get the In Flames Setlist of the concert at CLUB CITTA', Kawasaki, Japan on February 21, 1998 from the Dressed in Violence: Whoracle Tour 1998 Tour and other In Flames Setlists for free on setlist.fm!

www.setlist.fm

Although it's mislabelled as both '96 and '97 in various places.

 

[DE4life]

I also seem to have the Everdying Tribute tracks:

 

[DE4life]

I don't have 5GB of boots, in audio form at least, but in terms of what I do have from when I downloaded them back in the day:

Taby, Vitahuset, Sweden 1994
Club Citta, Japan 1998
Germany 1998 (no details on specific location, but would have been from the same tour as Club Citta)
Karen, Sweden 1999
Brooklyn, US 1999
Kansas, US 2000
Orebro, Sweden 2001
Popstad, Karen, Sweden 2001
Denver, US 2001
Venice, Italy 2002
London, UK 2002
New York, US 2002
Summer Breeze, Germany 2003
Australia 2004 (no details on specific location)
Tokyo, Japan 2004
Sweden Rock, Norje, Sweden 2004
Boeblingen, Germany 2005
Koln, Germany 2006

In terms of video, most of these I've downloaded from YouTube over the years:

Koln, Germany 1996
Stuttgart, Germany 1997
Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1998
Detroit, US 1999
Milwaukee, US 1999
Warchester, Mass, US 1999
Maryland, US 1999
Illinois, US 1999
Montreal, Canada 1999
New Jersey, US 1999
Vosselar, Belgium 2000
Toronto, Canada 2000 (two shows in August and November)
Indianapolis, US 2000
New York, US 2000
Detroit, US 2000
New Jersey, US 2000
Cleveland, US 2000
Columbus, US 2000
Circo Volador, Mexico 2000
Gothenburg, Sweden 2001 (two shows, one in August and one in December)
Wacken Open Air, Germany 2001
Detroit, US 2002
Philadelphia, US 2002
Montreal, Canada 2002
Gothenburg, Sweden 2002 (two shows, October and November)
Furnace Fest, Alabama 2002
Montreal, Canada 2003
Cologne, Germany 2004
Montreal, Canada 2004
Used & Abused DVD, 2004/2005?
Graspop, Belgium 2006
Rock am Ring, Germany 2006
St. Petersburg, Russia 2008
Moscow, Russia 2008
Vancouver, Canada 2009
Wacken Open Air, Germany 2012
Cologne, Germany 2014
Rock am Ring, Germany 2015
Wacken Open Air, Germany 2015
Norwich, UK 2019 (a handful of songs I recorded on my phone)
Michigan, US 2019 (not the full show, about 28 minutes - includes Anders ripping into somebody in the audience though)
Atlanta GA, US 2019

From memory 'Bullet Ride' from the Columbus boot was the first live IF clip I saw. Took me about 5 hours to download that one clip from Kazaa on my 56k connection. Worth it though, I was mesmerised watching it.

 

[DE4life]

The Rotterdam 1998 video is actually in pretty good quality considering the time period it was recorded in:



Lineup seems to be Anders, Peter, Niclas, Jesper and Bjorn (on drums).

 

[DE4life]

Also loved their stage setup during the SOAPF touring cycle, looks awesome.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, Club Citta is '98, it's mislabeled as '97. I would love a SBD recording of that one. I really need to organize my bootleg collection because it's scattered across multiple hard drives. That 5 gig block included audio and video, but that wasn't the entire collection either. I'm surprised you don't have the Gothenburg '99 and '02 (unless the '02 vids use the broadcast audio) P3 radio broadcasts as those were pretty widely distributed. I remember '02 sounding particularly good but I haven't listened to those in a long time.

 

[The Grayfox]

I was just watching a clip from Dubai in '07. Anders hair was receding back then which I don't remember ever noticing but it makes sense why he cut his dreads off -- could've also been the dreads that caused it as they're notorious for doing so. And then Bjorn is in some weird in-between stage where he couldn't decide if he wanted to regrow his hair out or not, so he looks like a chia pet. And this is still the era where they all wear matching clothes on stage. I watched this 4 minute clip and just found myself chuckling at a lot of shit there.

 

[DE4life]

I think my Karen, 1999 audio boot is probably Gothenburg '99, since Karen is in Gothenburg. Just labelled differently. I know I've heard the '02 Gothenburg show so not sure why I don't have it as part of my old collection. These are the Gothenburg 2002 vids - audio quality is pretty good on both.





Wacken 2012 is probably the show where Anders' hair looks the weirdest. That awkward stage after the dreads were chopped but before the hat became a regular feature.

I watched Rock am Ring 2006 last night... great show.

 

[GraemeSinclair]

It didn't -quite- live up to my highest hopes, but overall, I'm coming away from it feeling pretty positive. It's not above Come Clarity or SOAPF in my ranking, but it does some things better than both of them (mainly the harsh vocals, but also some of the instrumental work).

After listening through Siren Charms and Battles for the first time, I just... didn't go back and listen to them again, which was really the ultimate indictment. I didn't feel like I needed any more time with them to conclude they weren't for me and I've largely stuck by that conclusion. The same goes for the songs I didn't like on I, The Mask, I made a playlist with the six songs I liked and I've never really listened to the others again. I've listened to everything on Foregone at least twice so far, so that's a positive sign that even the worst songs on this album don't belong in the pit of despair.

For me, there's a lot to like on Foregone, but I'm not deaf to its problems. The overproduction of clean vocals is pretty egregious across the board, in lots of places during sustained vowels Anders sounds like a tape cassette being fast-forwarded, at points there are so many vocal tracks together that it sounds like "Some Nights" by Fun, which is not a comparison I ever thought I'd be making with an In Flames album. I love harmonised vocals, but quite often two or three voices is enough. As someone with synaesthesia, I can "see" two vocal lines (or guitar lines) moving next to another as streaks of colour - at times on Foregone, Anders sounds like he's vomiting a rainbow.

Sometimes he still tries to fit too many syllables into a line and loses the flow, but overall, the vocals and the music are meshed together much better than they were on Siren Charms and Battles.

For me, this is the best Anders' harsh vocals have sounded since Clayman, and I'm really happy that lower growls are so prevalent throughout the album (this might even be the most he's growled on a record since Colony). It's always been one of my favourite parts of the In Flames sound and I feel it's been criminally underused in every release since 2000, so that's a massive deal for me and really helps to elevate Foregone.

The Beginning of all Things - Deserves its place alongside Acoustic Medley, Pallar Anders Visa and Varmlandsvisen in the pantheon of gorgeous IF folky acoustic instrumentals. I did worry having heard YouTube recordings of it that I'd be bored by it, but hearing it on the record, it sounded lush and I enjoyed the little B-section with the low strings. It would have been nice to have a bit more of a segue between it and the start of SoSD, but that's really nit-picking. (8/10)

State of Slow Decay - Covered most of it when it came out, but it's nice to hear it in the context of the album. Could maybe be a bit more fleshed-out, but it's grown on me as it is. I enjoy the thrashy, chaotic feel, the harsh vocals (especially the pre-chorus), the harmonised solo. I wasn't familiar with Blinded by Fear before I heard SoSD, but I've listened to the two of them and it doesn't feel like a blatant rip-off for me, even if there are some similarities. (8/10)

Meet Your Maker - I like the verses, both instrumentally and vocally, although the lyrics are pretty basic. First overproduced chorus (although I do like the harmony on 'at the end of the masquerade' - I'd like to hear it sung live by a couple of good vocalists with no post-production). I love the dancing guitar melody behind the chorus. It definitely compensates for the vocal element. After a meandering start, the solo is solid, especially the end of it where it harmonises and meshes with the chords. (7/10)

Bleeding Out - At first, I was like "oh, okay, this is different, but potentially pretty cool". It had a kind of bouncy pirate vibe to me. There's a little leading guitar line at about 30 seconds in that's just signature In Flames and could be from any of their records. The harsh vocals sound good, but they don't entirely compensate for the issues with the clean vocals. Solo is a bit wheedly and directionless. (5/10)

Foregone Pt. 1 - I enjoy this song a lot. It feels excoriating, but in a good way. The chaotic verses remind me of Morphing Into Primal, especially the riff at 0:43. Probably the most unbridled aggression In Flames have had in a song in a very long time, but still retains a sense of melody throughout, with the three bar acoustic break and the solos from both Bjorn and Chris that have distinct voices but both feel like they're saying something rather than just noodling. (9/10)

Foregone Pt. 2 - I always liked the harsh vocals and the guitar melody on this one. The clean vocals on the verses have grown on me too, particularly where there's just one track. The solo could be a bit longer and more developed. It does give me -some- of the same vibes as Moonshield, but I think that's just time signature and tonality. (7/10)

Pure Light of Mind - I like the intro melody, it feels very In Flames. It was interesting hearing Anders try something approaching falsetto. The choruses are overwrought, as per. Instrumentally there are some nice things going on without it fully living up to the potential of that first melodic passage. As In Flames ballads go, it's somewhere above The Chosen Pessimist and the ones from SC/Battles, and somewhere below Come Clarity and Evil in a Closet. (6/10)

The Great Deceiver - Very solid, up-tempo slice of melodic death metal. The main melodic hook isn't the most inventive that In Flames have ever created (when it's competing with the likes of Swim, Resin, Jotun and Embody the Invisible, there's steep competition), but it does have that signature In Flames tonality to me. Reminds me a bit of the lead guitar in Dark Signs. I like Tanner's drum work a lot (actually he does really well throughout the record and they're mixed really well), and Anders sounds great here, with more of a mid-range scream, similar to the tone he used on Self vs. Self. The solo is just... there, but I do wish they had expanded the mellow section at 2:50 into something longer. It has a beautiful atmosphere (although melodically, it is very similar to The Attic). (8/10)

In The Dark - I LOVE THIS SONG. For me, Anders' harsh vocals here sound straight out of Colony. When I heard the growls on that clip a few days ago, I was quite hyped and I really hoped that passage wasn't the only use of harsh vocals on the song. I'm glad that all of the verses were growled. I'm fine with the basic Bottled-style riffing in 6/8 at the start, but I really enjoy it when that folky acoustic melody kicks in and the rhythm guitars get melodic. It does remind me of some of the 6/8 sections on The Jester Race (I know... I know... these things can be buried in there). I also enjoy the solo, and I agree with @ThePhobiac that the triumphant-sounding bit at the end is evocative of Clayman. It also has probably my favourite clean-sung chorus on the album. It has a good melody, feels mostly within Anders' range and the harmony vocal tracks are buried better in the mix. (9/10)

A Dialogue in Bb Minor - Instrumentally, there are some nice things happening here. Straight away, that verse riff is fun and reminds me of Reflect the Storm. There are some more cool melodic flourishes as things go on... But the chorus of this song is probably the biggest offender with the worst issue on the album and although I've tried, it's hard to look past it. It's just too much, too many layers. Especially that last chorus... Yikes. Acoustic outro is nice, for what it's worth. (5/10)

Cynosure - It's that kind of alt. rock that featured heavily on Siren Charms and Battles, and I feared would be their direction forever. It's not badly written music, it's just not really what I listen to In Flames for. The rhythm section did really well here. The chorus melody doesn't really work for me and the vocal overproduction is nearly as bad as Dialogue. (6/10)

End the Transmission - I'd say this one's comparable to Darker Times or Vacuum, a mid-tier song based predominantly on down-tuned riffing without much melody outside of its chorus. The chorus isn't the most stand-out melody they've ever written either. I like the growls, though. The fact that Anders sounds like this again blows my mind, and he does it with abandon throughout this song which livens up the verses. (6/10)

Become One - Feels like a filler track from Reroute, Come Clarity or ASOP, until the chorus... Jeez. (5/10)

Overall, I'm giving Foregone a first-impression rating of 7/10 which means it would fit into my album tier list as follows:

The Jester Race/Whoracle (10/10)
Clayman/Colony/Sounds of a Playground Fading (9/10)
Come Clarity (8/10)
Foregone/Reroute to Remain (7/10)
Soundtrack to Your Escape (6/10)
I, The Mask/A Sense of Purpose (5/10)
Siren Charms/Battles (2/10)

Just realised it's been a year since hearing Foregone all the way through for the first time, so I decided to go back and revisit my first impressions. Overall, I don't think my perspective has changed significantly. I haven't had the moment where I've thought "You know what? Maybe I've been trying too hard to like this thing".

I still get where a lot of you guys are coming from with the criticism I've read on here. The plastic, over-layered clean vocal production is really unnecessary. I think if they had treated them like the clean vocals on Reroute, Soundtrack, Come Clarity or SOAPF, there could still have been effective, hooky, melodic choruses without sounding so artificial. Likewise, I feel like the lyrics are generally less creative and thought-provoking than they were during either the 90s or the early 00s. I also feel like some ideas are underdeveloped (for example, State of Slow Decay just being verse-chorus-solo-verse-chorus-end). It would be nice if fewer of the songs adhered to a formula, and some ended up going in totally different directions from where they started rather than generally finishing with multiple repetitions of the chorus.

It's not like listening to some of their classic records where I'm so wowed by the melodies, the instrumentation, the lyrics and the vocals all at once that I can think of nothing I would change, or even know how to make better... Where I'm left wondering "how did you make something this flawlessly cool?"

However, having put that caveat up front, I think I still have to admit that I love Foregone. I've listened to it front to back several times a week since it came out and never been bored. It's become both comfortable background listening and something I can really vibe to when I want to pay attention. And, at the risk of sounding like I don't really understand some of my all-time favourite albums, I love Foregone for a lot of the same reasons I love The Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony and Clayman. I know it's not a complete return to their classic sound. Clayman was their last 'pure' classic-sound album, everything since has been a mongrel of alternative metal with varying amounts of melodic death metal influence that seemed to become nonexistent by the time we got to Battles... However, as I hear it, Foregone is the most melodic death metal thing they've released, certainly since Come Clarity, if not, Clayman. I guess whether or not it evokes similar emotions to those classic records is entirely subjective, but for me, Foregone's full of little moments that sound like trademark In Flames: all of the opening track sounds like their acoustic instrumentals going all the way back to Lunar Strain; the harmony solo on State of Slow Decay reminds me of the first solo in December Flower; the riffing on Foregone I could be from Whoracle; you could have played me either of the lead melodies from Foregone II or Pure Light of Mind with no context and asked "which band does this sound like?" and I'd have said "In Flames" instantly; there are lots of instrumental flourishes on The Great Deceiver that are pure Björn Gelotte; the recurring melody of In the Dark reminds me of the mid-section of Lord Hypnos, the solo evokes that triumphant upbeat melodic feeling found so frequently on Clayman... These are just some examples, and I don't feel like I'm stretching unnaturally to find these parallels. Add on top harsh vocals that have more similarities to Anders' first three records than anything post-Colony, and I feel like they provide little hooks that keep me listening, even when the clean vocals really aren't doing a lot for me in songs like Bleeding Out, Pure Light and Dialogue. Like, I'll be listening to Pure Light as background music and then the "I won't be long" line just before the chorus will grab my attention and I'll think "I've wanted him to sound like this on a record again for fucking ever. Nice." I even created a shuffle playlist of both Foregone and Colony that I listen to quite frequently while exercising, just so I could compare the vocal tones, and it's only helped to reinforce the impression.

Not expecting to convince anyone, and that's absolutely fine, but I figured that I owed it at least a little bit of gushing on its first birthday, given the amount of enjoyment it's given me over the last year, and also just to gently push back against the notion that it's not worth discussing. I'd probably upgrade my original 7/10 rating to an 8.

 

[Xpyro125]

That’s really refreshing to hear, even if it doesn’t change my mind on it— Which yeah, was never the point. I do genuinely like hearing people getting a ton out of the album when their reasoning has merit (So not the usual YouTube comment on their music videos) when I haven’t, especially coming off of I, the Mask, which I do still quite like. I’ve always tried being positive towards each album, with exception to Battles, which I’m unfortunately subconsciously positive towards despite my reluctance to like something that’s as bad and as anti-In Flames as it is, but so many little things about Foregone put me off from it. The downtuned metalcore riffing, the surprising lack of In Flames-esque melodies, a feeling of a lack of emotion in the harsh vocals compared to prior efforts, and the production of the clean vocals all stick out like a fucking dagger for me.

I feel like I did almost have an epiphany when I listened to it with my father because it was genuinely really enjoyable listening to it with him like we used to with the other albums, but I feel like I only liked it as much as I did there because I was listening to it with him. Before and since then, the album’s been a 6-7/10 for me despite many of the songs having higher marks than that. I just don’t like how it all comes together as a full product in particular, it just doesn’t feel In Flames in the sense of listening to it front to back. I don’t really know how to word any of it. Admittedly, I’ve pretty much just listened to the band in waves here and there, but… I didn’t really listen to Foregone much in that time. I kinda enjoyed most of the tracks more after having let them be for so long, but that was once over for most of the tracks and twice over if I really enjoyed them— And I’m someone who tends to listen to shit on repeat for hours, maybe even a full day. The songs work a lot better individually, and something about that feels wrong to me. I think that’s just how I feel about it in general, something just feels horribly wrong and not In Flames that I don’t know how to put into words.

I do maintain the notion that there isn’t much to discuss with it— It’s a rather straightforward album, and we all very much said what we felt towards it and what we saw in it pretty quickly. Considering its birthday, sure, I think we’re all due a little update on it. It gives us something to talk about with the album that we haven’t already said, and I think that makes it worth warranting discussing again.

Chris Broderick is incredible though, I’ll be happy to discuss that much for a good while.

Edit: Very late, but my take is less that it isn’t worth discussing and more that there’s not much to discuss.

 

[DE4life]

Over the past year I've tried to go back to Foregone a few times, but I always have the same thoughts. The songs that were released as singles are fine - not tracks that I find special enough to want to listen to regularly, but decent enough modern MDM-style songs. I have nothing bad to say about them (except SoSD ATG ripoff) but nor do I really have any desire to discuss them as it's just a case of they are what they are, for the most part. Some parts of the tracks are dragged down by the Benson infestation, but what can you do.

Meanwhile, the rest of the album just leaves me cold. The songs just aren't interesting to me. Pure Light of Mind is the only exception - it's a nice track with fake vocals. If you can get past the latter then there's no reason not to like it, but they do bother me. If it was an artist I didn't really know then it'd be less of a problem, but I know what Anders sounds like and for the most part PLoM is not it, which makes it weird to listen to.

I have no problem with people liking the album, if you enjoy it then that's cool. I'm sure there are albums I like which others would find boring. We all have different perspectives and tastes. Nothing wrong with that.

Personally Foregone will be the least played IF album for me, as there is little on there which I consider as having replay value. I do think it's quite telling that Foregone as an album has had very limited exposure live. Their last show in Singapore on Feb 8th had just two songs from Foregone in a 16 track setlist. I've seen people come up with excuses for this but I'm sorry, that is very unusual for IF. usually plenty of songs from their latest album get showings in the first year after release. According to setlist.fm only THREE songs from Foregone have been played with any regularity - State of Slow Decay, Foregone part 1 and TGD. Bafflingly they've played End the Transmission three times as well, which is bizarre as it's easily the most boring song on the record. That's it though, nothing else from the album (according to setlist.fm) has been played since it was released.

It's strange because Foregone got so much positive praise for being back to da rootz, a return to metal for IF, etc... but even though the metal community as a whole seemed to like Foregone, the band themselves don't seem to care much for playing those songs live.

To contrast with the two most recent albums, ITM had I Am Above, Call My Name, House, Voices and Burn played with some regularity. Deep Inside, Follow Me and Stay With Me have also been played. Battles had The End, The Truth, Here Until Forever, Wallflower and Before I Fall as the songs played regularly, with Drained, Save Me, Like Sand, In My Room and the title track also getting live play at some point.