New album Foregone out February 2023

[Xpyro125]

Haha, "I'm glad it's not House" is indeed a backhanded compliment, however I don't totally disagree with you. There are parts of Save Me that are decent. It has the potential to be a good song, but it's just ruined by a lack of progression, the sometimes unbearable autotuning on the vocals, the wafer-thin production and the vapid lyrical content. "Save Me" is repeated 19 times in a song that doesn't exactly have that many words to begin with.

I figured that’d be funny, though I do actually think it’s a pretty good song— And comparatively to most tracks off Battles, it’s a masterpiece. It has the same issue as Drained (Another Battles song that I actually do really like) in that the verses are quite nice, but the chorus is just mediocre pop metal slop. The first verse in particular is one of the few things off of Battles that not even just makes me feel something, but that I think is genuinely fantastic, at least for Battles. While I do like the ending and how it reminds me of The Chase (Which is such an underrated song, holy shit, why wasn’t this on base SC), it otherwise does nothing to justify it being a closing track to me. Maybe it’s due to Battles being torture to me, but Save Me is a 6/10, which is a fucking blessing on an album like Battles.

I like his vocals on TJR/Whoracle too tbf, they aren't as expressive as his later style but they're still perfectly fine. There isn't much need to be expressive when the lyrics use quite technical language anyway. One of my favourite ever IF lyric lines is "we've only seen outlines of the beginning, as its core the slowly moving raptor, will make the very notion of hell seem celestial in comparison". I really like the way Anders vocalises this, and I'd say as a whole his vocal approach fits TJR and Whoracle well.

I can absolutely agree about his TJR vocals not being too expressive, but I think Whoracle’s very much are, even if they’re not to the extent of those on Colony and Clayman. While I don’t really take issue with Colony’s vocals, those on tracks like …As the Future Repeats Today and Brush the Dust Away genuinely prevent me from enjoying what are otherwise pretty good songs. It works for other songs, don’t get me wrong, but if we’re asking which vocals we’d prefer overall, Clayman’s vocals would be towards the bottom of my list, and that is a somewhat recently developed feeling.

I do love the lyrics of classic IF albums. Dark Tranquillity always gets far more credit for having rather intellectual lyrics, but I vastly prefer IF’s lyrics— At least those of the classic era, Come Clarity, and SoaPF. The verdict’s out on everything else, but all of those are top tier lyrically.

I also think his deeper growls sound good live (when he's on form). Especially on the rare occasions they do the pre-1999 stuff. On Foregone, however, I find them very boring. That might be because I find the album as a whole quite boring though.

I think Anders’ deeper growls do work incredibly live, but there is more expressiveness and emotion put into them just due to the rawness of the situation. That, and I think Benson’s production does everyone little favor, save for Tanner’s drumming. I’d also say save for Chris’ soloing, but that’s purely due to me loving the material there.

Honestly I think the rawness of Anders' vocals on Colony and Clayman are what I really like about them. There's a desperation in his voice which mirrors the lyrics perfectly. Now granted, production plays a huge part in making them acceptable on Clayman. Production also plays a huge part in making them unacceptable (to me) on ASOP - particularly as they aren't significantly different on SOAPF (when the ripped vocal stems are compared) but the way they're mixed into the music is totally different and makes a massive difference. Less so on Colony, because you can hear on live performances from that era that his voice is pretty much exactly the same. That's just his vocal style working for me in conjunction with the music, irrespective of the production choices.

I do still believe that there are some differences purely in enunciation and in where exactly his voice and projection were at (At least from what I’ve heard) on ASOP and SoaPF, but compared to the differences of every other album, I do think those two are undisputedly the closest vocally by a wide margin.

Move Through Me is okay, but a bit empty. Not a song I'd come back to often because there just isn't much there. Condemned would undoubtedly be my top pick from the album (EP excluded), and I think it's a shame that one didn't get more play. Everything's Gone becomes a setlist staple, somehow, whilst Condemned is - to me - a much better, heavy, headbangable track that isn't too old. I mean, only six years between ASOP and Siren Charms.

I swear Condemned’s chorus feels like a Disturbed chorus— Not any one in particular, just like it’d fit perfectly with their style. In any case, it’s a decent song with fantastic drumming, and that’s all I’ve got for it. It’s definitely screwed over by its production and mixing, at least on my headphones, but it’s one of the more salvageable songs off the album.

I’d say my favorite’s always been Disconnected, it’s just genuinely great, and the lyrics feel real unlike a lot of the other tracks on the album. Drenched in Fear’s become a recent favorite for me, it just kicks ass in a way that other songs like March to the Shore try and fail to do.

I agree, ITM is easily my favourite Benson-era IF album and it isn't even close. Now granted that isn't saying much, but nonetheless ITM still retains that "In Flames" feel to me, in a way that Foregone does not. Foregone might technically be heavier, and might even be closer to 'metal' in a traditional sense, but not the kind of metal In Flames have ever really produced. ITM has the Benson virus and still comes below everything pre-Benson for me except ASOP, but it's okay. There are still songs from it I'll occasionally listen to. Voices is a cool little track. The title track is pretty nice if you can get past the cleans. I like Burn, Deep Inside, All the Pain and Stay With Me as fairly simple, light-metal tracks. It's not the In Flames I knew, but there are still traces of that band in each of the songs. On Foregone, not so much. Fleetingly at best on a few tracks, whilst on many of them I hear zero In Flames magic. Basically any song that wasn't one of the singles.

I relistened to the album a few hours ago, and honestly, it’s not quite as good as I remembered it being— Certainly not equal to TJR in a ranking like how I had it when the melodeath subreddit had the community ranking two(?) years ago. I feel the melodies just as much, but a bit less of the magic. The first minute of Follow Me is some of the best stuff on the album, but God, the song is atrocious otherwise. I thought I stopped listening to it because Stay With Me did everything it wanted to better, but it just sucks overall. House is just some of the worst music I’ve ever listened to. In This Life is fucking boring but not as bad as I remember— Hell, it has one of the only key changes I actually like from an In Flames song, which is a miracle in and of itself. Burn’s chorus ruins an otherwise fantastic song. Aside from that though, I do think it’s a great album— Granted, that’s a solid third of the album that’s fucked, with it being the entire middle portion save for We Will Remember (I am its only fan, even if it shouldn’t have been a single), but it’s fantastic otherwise. I’ll have to retier the albums soon, my opinions have definitely changed in the last few months.

Foregone stays losing though, fuck that album.

 

[Xpyro125]

Also, speaking of how much Follow Me sucks, have this absolute gem. There are no words.

 

[GraemeSinclair]

I'm glad the conversation circled back to Anders' growls because I'd been meaning to write more about it after the discussion about the Summer Breeze show a while ago, but I didn't get round to it, and the weeks passed.

I think I've been consistent since I started posting here 14 years ago in gushing about, or longing for Anders' lower harsh vocals. I got into In Flames through Come Clarity in 2006. I got a USB drive with the full discography up to 2005 from a schoolfriend, and I didn't really consume it in a structured way, I just stuck it on my old Creative Zen and would put In Flames on shuffle, so I'd hear Cloud Connected back to back with Biosphere, and didn't really know about the chronology or progression of their sound. It was also really my first time getting into any sort of extreme metal and getting used to harsh vocals at all, so I didn't necessarily know how to recognise different techniques.

Some point pretty quickly after I started listening, Jotun and Jester Script Transfigured became standout songs, then December Flower and The Jester Race. I really can't say if I came to like those songs in particular because of Anders' vocal style, or if I came to like Anders' vocal style because I liked those songs, but I started to become aware that when Anders joined the band, his harsh vocals were quite stylistically distinct to the way they sounded on Reroute, Soundtrack and Come Clarity. I think I also started reading online discussion of In Flames as well, and I can vaguely remember a review talking about In Flames' change in direction and it said something like "Fans who were there from the start have struggled to accept the 'watering down' of the band's sound with electronica and poppy choruses, while newer fans struggle to understand why Anders sounds so angry and incomprehensible on the older records". I think that was when the penny dropped that A: now that I was used to harsh vocals, 'angry and incomprehensible' Anders sounded coolest to me, and B: Anders didn't really sound like that any more, at all.

From listening to the mid-2000s records, and watching videos of live performances from the Come Clarity tour and the Used and Abused DVD, it was obvious that Anders hadn't just incorporated high screams and clean vocals alongside his old style - he had more-or-less completely replaced it, even when singing songs from TJR/Whoracle/Colony in concert. There were, of course, moments in live shows where he would drop down for a few seconds and show that he was still very capable, likewise on the studio recordings, there were either a few snatched words in a lower register, or it would be buried deep in the mix below layers of higher screams, but they were few and far between. I think by the time ASOP was being recorded, I was already posting on forums about how I hoped it would bring back at least some lower harsh vocals, but alas... it did not.

The point is that, after becoming a fan, it seemed like a part of their sound I really liked might be basically gone forever (from live performances and recordings), so the fact that in recent years, Anders has started to explore those lower frequencies both live and in the studio has been an amazing surprise. That video of Moonshield that @The Grayfox mentioned, for example, blows me away every time I watch it - it sounds like the way that song should be sung. I think I'd go further and say that, having seen songs from TJR-Colony being performed using predominantly screams for years, it feels cathartic to hear songs from post-Reroute albums performed using predominantly growls. Like, in my ideal world, they always would have been. I think that's also a big part of why I like Foregone so much, and why it feels like the closest thing to classic IF they've released since Clayman, despite its overproduced poppy elements.

 

[The Grayfox]

That podcast is great. I think you should change your title to "Forum Legend" and Eochaid should change his to "Mr. Gatekeeper" ... "classic Eochaid."

Also, speaking of how much Follow Me sucks.

I actually really like Follow Me. When it comes to newer songs, I definitely have unpopular opinions as to which songs I think are good and which I think are absolute horse shit. Follow Me and We Will Remember being two of the ones I like that most people don't.

The point is that, after becoming a fan, it seemed like a part of their sound I really liked might be basically gone forever (from live performances and recordings), so the fact that in recent years, Anders has started to explore those lower frequencies both live and in the studio has been an amazing surprise. That video of Moonshield that @The Grayfox mentioned, for example, blows me away every time I watch it - it sounds like the way that song should be sung. I think I'd go further and say that, having seen songs from TJR-Colony being performed using predominantly screams for years, it feels cathartic to hear songs from post-Reroute albums performed using predominantly growls. Like, in my ideal world, they always would have been. I think that's also a big part of why I like Foregone so much, and why it feels like the closest thing to classic IF they've released since Clayman, despite its overproduced poppy elements.

I think that's basically how I feel. I thought the growls would never make a comeback. As I said before, I'm generally a bigger fan of gutterals than screams anyway. I love death metal, some deathcore. I really like the power that comes from gutterals. They're more pleasing to my ear. When it comes to Anders, there are moments on Come Clarity, for example, that I find downright annoying. His shrill screaming is a bit much for me at times. If there's one positive I can say about Anders on Foregone, it's that I do appreciate that he is growling a lot more.

 

[Xpyro125]

I actually really like Follow Me. When it comes to newer songs, I definitely have unpopular opinions as to which songs I think are good and which I think are absolute horse shit. Follow Me and We Will Remember being two of the ones I like that most people don't.

I think I have some songs that I love that are unpopular too— Though half of them are probably just songs that get overlooked and whatnot. Pacing Death’s Trail, Transparent, The Chase, and Worlds Within the Margin are some of my underrated favorites. Glad to see a fellow We Will Remember fan though, I thought it was just me here. I will say that I did like Follow Me on my first listen, but with Stay With Me existing and doing just about everything it did better (Though if someone argued that the acoustic part of Follow Me was better, I could see it) and with my music tastes changing through the years, it just does not hold up for me. Love the first minute of it though, that’s pure undistilled In Flames magic right there.

I'm glad the conversation circled back to Anders' growls because I'd been meaning to write more about it after the discussion about the Summer Breeze show a while ago, but I didn't get round to it, and the weeks passed.

I think I've been consistent since I started posting here 14 years ago in gushing about, or longing for Anders' lower harsh vocals. I got into In Flames through Come Clarity in 2006. I got a USB drive with the full discography up to 2005 from a schoolfriend, and I didn't really consume it in a structured way, I just stuck it on my old Creative Zen and would put In Flames on shuffle, so I'd hear Cloud Connected back to back with Biosphere, and didn't really know about the chronology or progression of their sound. It was also really my first time getting into any sort of extreme metal and getting used to harsh vocals at all, so I didn't necessarily know how to recognise different techniques.

Some point pretty quickly after I started listening, Jotun and Jester Script Transfigured became standout songs, then December Flower and The Jester Race. I really can't say if I came to like those songs in particular because of Anders' vocal style, or if I came to like Anders' vocal style because I liked those songs, but I started to become aware that when Anders joined the band, his harsh vocals were quite stylistically distinct to the way they sounded on Reroute, Soundtrack and Come Clarity. I think I also started reading online discussion of In Flames as well, and I can vaguely remember a review talking about In Flames' change in direction and it said something like "Fans who were there from the start have struggled to accept the 'watering down' of the band's sound with electronica and poppy choruses, while newer fans struggle to understand why Anders sounds so angry and incomprehensible on the older records". I think that was when the penny dropped that A: now that I was used to harsh vocals, 'angry and incomprehensible' Anders sounded coolest to me, and B: Anders didn't really sound like that any more, at all.

From listening to the mid-2000s records, and watching videos of live performances from the Come Clarity tour and the Used and Abused DVD, it was obvious that Anders hadn't just incorporated high screams and clean vocals alongside his old style - he had more-or-less completely replaced it, even when singing songs from TJR/Whoracle/Colony in concert. There were, of course, moments in live shows where he would drop down for a few seconds and show that he was still very capable, likewise on the studio recordings, there were either a few snatched words in a lower register, or it would be buried deep in the mix below layers of higher screams, but they were few and far between. I think by the time ASOP was being recorded, I was already posting on forums about how I hoped it would bring back at least some lower harsh vocals, but alas... it did not.

The point is that, after becoming a fan, it seemed like a part of their sound I really liked might be basically gone forever (from live performances and recordings), so the fact that in recent years, Anders has started to explore those lower frequencies both live and in the studio has been an amazing surprise. That video of Moonshield that @The Grayfox mentioned, for example, blows me away every time I watch it - it sounds like the way that song should be sung. I think I'd go further and say that, having seen songs from TJR-Colony being performed using predominantly screams for years, it feels cathartic to hear songs from post-Reroute albums performed using predominantly growls. Like, in my ideal world, they always would have been. I think that's also a big part of why I like Foregone so much, and why it feels like the closest thing to classic IF they've released since Clayman, despite its overproduced poppy elements.

I love both high screams and more guttural growls, so I do feel you on loving Anders’ growls. Whoracle Anders is right with Come Clarity for my favorite vocal performance by him, as I really think it’s an even more alive, emotive, and personality-led iteration of his TJR vocals. I want to love his vocals on Foregone, and they’re objectively up there with TJR’s vocals, but there’s just this lack of emotion carried through them that really makes them fail to resonate with me.

I think STYE and ASOP both could translate really well to growl-led vocals. There were hints of that in F(r)iend for STYE, and the rare growls he did on ASOP were far and away the most enjoyable vocal performances he had on that album. Transparent would absolutely work with growls too, and I think it’d be awesome to hear it considering how groove-driven the song is instrumentally. Groove metal is something that just inherently resonates with me, hence my top three albums being Come Clarity, Whoracle, and SoaPF, and I think growls can be pretty fantastic for stuff like that. Shit makes me wish that A Dialogue (Foregone) had its groove hook be the chorus that the song was based around. If songs like All For Me, The Hive, and Leeches are going to be performed live, it just makes sense for them to thrive when Anders returns to having genuinely great growls in a live setting. I don’t feel that the magic is there in the studio at this point, but the concert I went to back in 2022 was such an incredible experience, and it’s wonderful to see that In Flames has gotten to where they need to be in that regard— Save for Anders’ clean vocals, but that’s fine enough with me. I’m just glad I didn’t go to see them from 2016-2019.

 

[DE4life]

I'm glad the conversation circled back to Anders' growls because I'd been meaning to write more about it after the discussion about the Summer Breeze show a while ago, but I didn't get round to it, and the weeks passed.

I think I've been consistent since I started posting here 14 years ago in gushing about, or longing for Anders' lower harsh vocals. I got into In Flames through Come Clarity in 2006. I got a USB drive with the full discography up to 2005 from a schoolfriend, and I didn't really consume it in a structured way, I just stuck it on my old Creative Zen and would put In Flames on shuffle, so I'd hear Cloud Connected back to back with Biosphere, and didn't really know about the chronology or progression of their sound. It was also really my first time getting into any sort of extreme metal and getting used to harsh vocals at all, so I didn't necessarily know how to recognise different techniques.

Some point pretty quickly after I started listening, Jotun and Jester Script Transfigured became standout songs, then December Flower and The Jester Race. I really can't say if I came to like those songs in particular because of Anders' vocal style, or if I came to like Anders' vocal style because I liked those songs, but I started to become aware that when Anders joined the band, his harsh vocals were quite stylistically distinct to the way they sounded on Reroute, Soundtrack and Come Clarity. I think I also started reading online discussion of In Flames as well, and I can vaguely remember a review talking about In Flames' change in direction and it said something like "Fans who were there from the start have struggled to accept the 'watering down' of the band's sound with electronica and poppy choruses, while newer fans struggle to understand why Anders sounds so angry and incomprehensible on the older records". I think that was when the penny dropped that A: now that I was used to harsh vocals, 'angry and incomprehensible' Anders sounded coolest to me, and B: Anders didn't really sound like that any more, at all.

From listening to the mid-2000s records, and watching videos of live performances from the Come Clarity tour and the Used and Abused DVD, it was obvious that Anders hadn't just incorporated high screams and clean vocals alongside his old style - he had more-or-less completely replaced it, even when singing songs from TJR/Whoracle/Colony in concert. There were, of course, moments in live shows where he would drop down for a few seconds and show that he was still very capable, likewise on the studio recordings, there were either a few snatched words in a lower register, or it would be buried deep in the mix below layers of higher screams, but they were few and far between. I think by the time ASOP was being recorded, I was already posting on forums about how I hoped it would bring back at least some lower harsh vocals, but alas... it did not.

The point is that, after becoming a fan, it seemed like a part of their sound I really liked might be basically gone forever (from live performances and recordings), so the fact that in recent years, Anders has started to explore those lower frequencies both live and in the studio has been an amazing surprise. That video of Moonshield that @The Grayfox mentioned, for example, blows me away every time I watch it - it sounds like the way that song should be sung. I think I'd go further and say that, having seen songs from TJR-Colony being performed using predominantly screams for years, it feels cathartic to hear songs from post-Reroute albums performed using predominantly growls. Like, in my ideal world, they always would have been. I think that's also a big part of why I like Foregone so much, and why it feels like the closest thing to classic IF they've released since Clayman, despite its overproduced poppy elements.

I was a few years behind you, but my experience wasn't too dissimilar. I was introduced to In Flames by a woman on AIM who sent me Moonshield and Jester Script Transfigured. That would have been around 2000, just after Clayman came out but some time before Reroute. At the time I wasn't listening to metal, so when I heard those songs, especially with the vocals, I was just like 'lmao what is this?', she also sent me some Emperor which I reacted to similarly. It was only when she sent me Only for the Weak about a week later that I really got hooked. At first purely because of the guitar melodies - I endured the vocals rather than appreciated them. Eventually I came around to enjoying the vocals as well, but at first they legitimately just gave me a headache. I then began downloading IF tracks on WinMX, quite randomly though. I was confused as to why the vocals, production etc sounded so different across Stand Ablaze, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dead Eternity, Embody, etc. It was only later that I realised Lunar and Sub had different vocalists entirely, lol. I just thought Anders had majorly changed his style over the years.

I bought Reroute when it came out, and pretty soon I'd purchased all IF albums and was far more familiar with the back catalogue and the history of the band. I also had a Creative Zen (Vision M I think?) and would have all of my music on random shuffle, so I was rarely listening to anything in order. I went through 3 or 4 of those MP3 players... one got stolen, the others eventually just stopped working. I guess having a miniture HDD inside (from memory it was 30GB?) was always going to end in failure, as I spent so much time walking around with it in my pocket. I still have a couple of Vision M's in working order, but no real use for them nowadays as whilst I still primary listen through MP3s, I can easily fit all of my music onto my phone. Also the Zens have no bluetooth option, and I'd be loathe to return to needing wired headphones, having used bluetooth ones for so long at this point. I stopped using Creative MP3 players after I got a Zen MX and it was shit. Buggy as hell. I moved onto a Sandisk... clip maybe? It was really small so lacked the screen size of the older MP3 players I had, but was perfect for just putting in my pocket and listening to my playlist on shuffle. I had that little gadget for some time, until getting an HTC One X which essentially negated the need for a separate MP3 player.

 

[DE4life]

I figured that’d be funny, though I do actually think it’s a pretty good song— And comparatively to most tracks off Battles, it’s a masterpiece. It has the same issue as Drained (Another Battles song that I actually do really like) in that the verses are quite nice, but the chorus is just mediocre pop metal slop. The first verse in particular is one of the few things off of Battles that not even just makes me feel something, but that I think is genuinely fantastic, at least for Battles. While I do like the ending and how it reminds me of The Chase (Which is such an underrated song, holy shit, why wasn’t this on base SC), it otherwise does nothing to justify it being a closing track to me. Maybe it’s due to Battles being torture to me, but Save Me is a 6/10, which is a fucking blessing on an album like Battles.

I can absolutely agree about his TJR vocals not being too expressive, but I think Whoracle’s very much are, even if they’re not to the extent of those on Colony and Clayman. While I don’t really take issue with Colony’s vocals, those on tracks like …As the Future Repeats Today and Brush the Dust Away genuinely prevent me from enjoying what are otherwise pretty good songs. It works for other songs, don’t get me wrong, but if we’re asking which vocals we’d prefer overall, Clayman’s vocals would be towards the bottom of my list, and that is a somewhat recently developed feeling.

I do love the lyrics of classic IF albums. Dark Tranquillity always gets far more credit for having rather intellectual lyrics, but I vastly prefer IF’s lyrics— At least those of the classic era, Come Clarity, and SoaPF. The verdict’s out on everything else, but all of those are top tier lyrically.

I think Anders’ deeper growls do work incredibly live, but there is more expressiveness and emotion put into them just due to the rawness of the situation. That, and I think Benson’s production does everyone little favor, save for Tanner’s drumming. I’d also say save for Chris’ soloing, but that’s purely due to me loving the material there.

I do still believe that there are some differences purely in enunciation and in where exactly his voice and projection were at (At least from what I’ve heard) on ASOP and SoaPF, but compared to the differences of every other album, I do think those two are undisputedly the closest vocally by a wide margin.

I swear Condemned’s chorus feels like a Disturbed chorus— Not any one in particular, just like it’d fit perfectly with their style. In any case, it’s a decent song with fantastic drumming, and that’s all I’ve got for it. It’s definitely screwed over by its production and mixing, at least on my headphones, but it’s one of the more salvageable songs off the album.

I’d say my favorite’s always been Disconnected, it’s just genuinely great, and the lyrics feel real unlike a lot of the other tracks on the album. Drenched in Fear’s become a recent favorite for me, it just kicks ass in a way that other songs like March to the Shore try and fail to do.

I relistened to the album a few hours ago, and honestly, it’s not quite as good as I remembered it being— Certainly not equal to TJR in a ranking like how I had it when the melodeath subreddit had the community ranking two(?) years ago. I feel the melodies just as much, but a bit less of the magic. The first minute of Follow Me is some of the best stuff on the album, but God, the song is atrocious otherwise. I thought I stopped listening to it because Stay With Me did everything it wanted to better, but it just sucks overall. House is just some of the worst music I’ve ever listened to. In This Life is fucking boring but not as bad as I remember— Hell, it has one of the only key changes I actually like from an In Flames song, which is a miracle in and of itself. Burn’s chorus ruins an otherwise fantastic song. Aside from that though, I do think it’s a great album— Granted, that’s a solid third of the album that’s fucked, with it being the entire middle portion save for We Will Remember (I am its only fan, even if it shouldn’t have been a single), but it’s fantastic otherwise. I’ll have to retier the albums soon, my opinions have definitely changed in the last few months.

Foregone stays losing though, fuck that album.

I can't really deal with Drained as the chorus and lyrics are just laughable to me, but then there isn't much off Battles that I'd choose to listen to nowadays. I don't mind the title track. Greatest Greed & Us Against the World are fine for what they are, albeit more like IF covering some obscure pop-punk band. I swear some of these songs must have been rejected tracks for other bands Benson & co have produced for in the past, because it's as far away from In Flames as one can imagine.

I would say only ASOP and SC are albums where songs are ruined by the vocals for me. Even on Battles the vocals aren't really bad, they are just fake and plastic as fuck, much like the album as a whole.

TJR vocals are basically just growly vocals, not much expression going on there, although they fit the music and lyrics just fine. Whoracle there's definitely a bit more in the way of expression there, but it isn't until Colony, imo, where Anders is really able to start putting some proper emotion into his vocals. I think once he stopped focusing on just doing deep, DM-style vocals and transitioned into what was probably a more natural range with the screaming, it enabled him to express more. The downside was that doing vocals that way was completely unsustainable, and it's been so for the vast majority of vocalists from back then who had a similar style. There's just no safe way to do it. They've pretty much all dropped to a lower, less expressive register (Stanne, Speed, etc) or sound like total shit these days (Lindberg).

Sundin's lyrics have always been awesome. His early stuff on DT and his lyrics for TJR & Whoracle are very, very cool. Stanne didn't have quite that same knack when it came to clever lyrics, so you could always tell a DT track where Stanne had written lyrics, and when he became sole lyric-writer I'd argue DT lyrics became pretty derivitive and repetitive. Not bad, but just predictable and going over the exact same theme and often using very similar verbage. As far as Anders' lyrics are concerned, I think they were very creative between 1999 and 2006. Colony and Clayman are his best work to me, but Reroute is also full of cool little metaphors, albeit simplified from the last two albums. STYE and CC were a lot more straightforward, but still creative and thoughtful. He seemed to stop putting significant effort into his lyrics from ASOP onwards though. You get glimpses of his older style here and there, but by and large what he writes post-2006 is far more direct and seems calculated to appeal to a broader, younger audience. It's a shame because the lyrics from the 1999-2006 period show that Anders did have a genuine talent for expressing his thoughts and concepts through words, and it's even more impressive when it isn't even his first language. He obviously felt it wasn't worth the effort after a certain point, though - or that more direct, simple lyrics were simply a better vehicle to get his thoughts across to a wider audience.

The thing with Anders' vocals on ASOP (and SOAPF) is that there's no real technique there at all. He's just kind of yelling for the most part. You hear it particularly in the ASOP studio diaries videos, where it shows him recording the vocals. I'm sorry, but there is simply zero talent to what he's doing there. None. He is just yelling and it sounds shit. You need a damn good mix to cover up for that, and ASOP didn't have it. SOAPF, thankfully, did, but he's still not really doing anything derived from natural talent on that album either. Again, mostly just yelling. Whoever produced the vocals on SOAPF just did an absolutely superhuman job of making it work. The mix makes those vocals sound better than they have any right to be, especially the cleans. Benson, for all his experience, hasn't come close to replicating the incredible job that was done on SOAPF. SOAPF vocals still sound mostly natural, whereas Benson covers up for Anders' weakness as a vocalist (in terms of cleans) by simply processing them into oblivion. It gets annoying very fast, for me anyway.

And if we're talking about Follow Me, the vocals are by far my biggest complaint for that exact reason. The autotuning is fucking egregious and irritating as hell, especially on the chorus. Much like Save Me, it's another song with potential but stunted by a lack of development across the song, unnatural sounding vocals and production not really doing it many favours. The lyrics are also, frankly, juvenile and difficult to take seriously. Anders did the whole silly 'I'm your saviour, take my hand and I'll lead you to the light' schtick on Liberation, which is imo a far superior song. The rest of ITM is a mixed bag - as noted, I would put it above everything post-2011 but below everything pre-2011, excluding ASOP - and if ASOP had the vocals rerecorded and was remastered, it would go above ITM as well. The reason I point that out is because rerecorded vocals and remastering wouldn't really increase or decrease my listening experience for ITM, but it would for ASOP. ASOP is an album failed by vocals and production, whereas whilst the vocal production can be annoying at times on ITM, it doesn't strike a fatal blow to the album as a whole. It's essentially fulfilling 90-95% of its potential, whereas I don't think ASOP even fulfils 50% of its potential due to the shitty vocal mix and awful production choices.

 

[mindd]

I just realized that we've missed the 10th anniversary of Siren Charms on September 5th.
Oh boy, how time flies. Ten years from Siren Charms until today, the same amount of time has passed between Lunar Strain and STYE. Wild.

Speaking of, Lunar Strain had its 30th birthday this April. Boys are getting old. We are getting old.

 

[DE4life]

Ten years after STYE came out, I appreciated it a lot more than I did at the time of release.

Ten years after SC came out, I still think it sucks.

Lunar Strain is a fine wine that gets better with age. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Slave.

Only kidding, my opinion on Lunar has been the same almost from the beginning. Cool little demo with a couple of very nice songs, some good songs and some shit songs. '99 versions showed Lunar's true potential.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Already been ten years? I highly enjoyed SC when it came out. Going online and seeing all the hate was like a throwback to the ASOP days for me. I still think it's great, though its negative reputation makes me question my sanity and it's hard for me to listen to the album without thinking "everyone hates this."

STYE was my first IF album along with R2R. Still think it's a great record, just like back then.

 

[Xpyro125]

SC’s a pretty bad album to me, even if I do enjoy it a lot more than I used to. I don’t think I hated it when it came out, but I definitely didn’t see any point in listening to it save for a few songs. I don’t think it’s quite as bad as its reputation entails (That honor goes to Battles), at least.

The stretch of Everything’s Gone through Through Oblivion are genuinely good and well-crafted songs, even if they aren’t nearly as phenomenal nor as much of masterpieces in comparison to the band’s classic material. There’s a level of effort put into it akin to STYE (Which I like a lot) and ASOP, save for in certain instances where there’s a surprising amount of care. I do love the title track’s instrumentals, though the vocals and lyrics ruin it for me. The bonus tracks in particular are far and away the best parts of the album, and while I don’t think they’d save SC’s reputation, I feel like a lot of people would put it at least a star higher than they would otherwise if those two were on the regular version of the album.

I like that I like it, since it’s one of those albums where I like it in spite of it being bad. There are so many instances where I can look at it and say that that’s dogshit, but nearly as many where I can look at it with fondness, flawed (WEWO, Rusted Nail) or not. I just think that’s cool.

I think the few of us who do enjoy it have given it its flowers— At least as much as it’ll realistically receive. While a lot of poorly-received albums flip their reputations completely over time, I really don’t see this nor Battles being one of them, and that’s okay. In retrospect, I think I am glad that it exists, even if so many people would prefer a version of history where it doesn’t. At least it still feels like In Flames instead of a Howard Benson ventriloquist act.

 

[DE4life]

I definitely did hate SC when it came out. Vehemently. I was so hyped after SOAPF and it felt like the biggest letdown ever. I didn't and still don't feel like it embodies In Flames in any realistic way. At least, not the legacy the band had crafted before SC was released. It's certainly representative of modern IF, but you have to remember at the time STYE and ASOP were considered the "worst" so it was a much higher bar then than it is now, and SC was incredibly far below even moderate expectations.

Nowadays I wouldn't say I hate the album. I still don't like it and I very much doubt I ever will, but there are some songs on there I grew to appreciate for what they are. WEWO is a quite OK IF-style ballad. Through Oblivion is actually a solid little electro-pop song, even if it has nothing to do with what anyone would associate with In Flames as a band up to that point. Dead Eyes, in a vacuum, is actually not so bad and the melodic section about 3/4 in is really nice. A rare win for Bjorn on what is otherwise a very creatively uninspiring album instrumentally.

Where they fail is, funnily enough, when they try to be more metal(ish). The softer, slower songs are often simpler in structure and that helps them sound more complete. Where they actually needed some effort put in, they fucked it up, almost every time. Half-baked songs with incoherent structures and terrible production choices. We now know that the band wasn't in a good place during SC, with Anders and the rest of the band not getting along very well, and boy does it show. Anders doing his thing, the band doing something totally different, and as a result you get this ridiculous situation where the vocals do not fit properly into 80% of songs on the album. It's quite embarrassing for a band with that much experience. Especially when you factor in that they were in the same situation during the Come Clarity recordings, and yet knocked it out of the park. It's not like they hadn't done it before.

So yeah, whilst I can't say hand-on-heart that I hate SC - I can't devote that kind of emotional energy towards it at this point - I still find it to be a sham of an album. An awful 'last hurrah' for In Flames as a sole creative force, before Benson was parachuted in to supposedly save them from drowning in their own incompetence and laziness. Maybe that's what 'Save Me' is actually about - a poignant plea to King Howard to rescue them from their descent into despair.

 

[The Grayfox]

Their setlist in Athens is very similar to what they had been playing previously. They added a few songs, including Trigger, Graveland and My Sweet Shadow. They also took out Bullet Ride. Pretty disappointing. But then what isn't disappointing about In Flames these days?

 

[eochaid]

We aren't talking enough about Bjorn's christian rock band.

 

[DE4life]

Their setlist in Athens is very similar to what they had been playing previously. They added a few songs, including Trigger, Graveland and My Sweet Shadow. They also took out Bullet Ride. Pretty disappointing. But then what isn't disappointing about In Flames these days?

Good ol' predictable Anders and Bjorn. I don't mind Trigger or MSS on the set, but Graveland yet again? Just fuck off with that song already. I like it just fine but do they think it's the apex of TJR or something? So many better songs to choose from and they just keep repeating this one which, if we're being honest, is one of the less interesting tracks from TJR. You'd think they'd be bored of it by now, but I guess they prefer monotonously playing the same fucking song over and over again rather than having to put the effort into getting used to regularly playing a different one from TJR.

 

[The Grayfox]

I really don't understand why they keep going with Graveland. Especially because Moonshield would likely appeal to more people in the crowd, even if only by a few. But their logic that they don't like playing songs that the crowd isn't into is really backwards here since NOBODY reacts to Graveland I think it's a fine song too, but it's certainly one of the weaker tracks on the album. If you're going to play a song from TJR and you don't care about the reaction, play the title track or Dead Eternity or December Flower or Artifacts or any other song besides Graveland.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Going through the other songs on TJR:

Moonshield - Pretty sure they break this one out every once in a while, or at least they used to. It's a slower number, granted.

The Jester's Dance - Ususally gets paired with Moonshield when played live.

Artifacts - A great substitute for Graveland, not sure why they haven't played this in forever.

Lord Hypnos - A bit obscure, has that break halfway through the song and becomes a mid-tempo number. Not sure it'd flow live. Not sure they've ever played it live, actually. Not that it's a bad song by any means -- it's in my top three along with Moonshield and December Flower.

Dead Eternity - I'll have to check when they played it in 1996 (did they?), but they'd probably have to amend that first part of the song before the spoken word section. I imagine it'd be a bit of a momentum killer. That said, of all the old songs they've been occasionally resurrecting, I expect this one to be the next.

The Jester Race - Kind of plodding; I don't see this one going over well in a live setting, as much as I enjoy it.

December Flower - Seems to be only for special occasions. I imagine the solo is the big barrier to it. Chris can pull it off, obviously.

Wayfarer - Instrumental, not going to happen.

Dead God in Me - Pretty similar to Graveland in a way, though it has that long outro. It's also kind of weird in that it starts, gets very death metal, hits a climax, and then just ends. It'd be a good concert closer, but I don't see it fitting halfway through a set.


Also, if I'm being perfectly honest, Foregone Pt. 1 itself is a good substitute for Graveland. I'd just slot in Artifacts if it were me.

 

[DE4life]

I've been fortunate to hear TJR title track live and whilst the opening is spellbinding, the rest of the song less so. Moonshield or Artifacts would be better choices for a regular set list.

 

[eochaid]

Moonshield and Lord Hypnoss are my choices.

 

[DE4life]

I'd love to hear Lord Hypnos live at least once. Maybe they'll pull it out at one of the Borgholm Brinner shows. Anders with his current vocals could potentially do the song justice.