New album Foregone out February 2023

Yeah I don't really know what the OFTW chorus is supposed to represent either... I mean, I could come up with something abstract but nothing obvious.
 
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OK let's have a laugh, Battles track-by-track from Hipster and Bjorn's perspective...

https://www.loudersound.com/features/in-flames-track-by-track-guide-to-new-album-battles

The End

Anders: “In today’s society everything is so fast, it’s like, ‘Next one, next one, next one…’ All we judge other people on is the way they look, the last vacation they’ve been on, the last beer they’ve had… with social media, what I want you to see is how happy I am, how great my life might be. It’s very superficial and we never say, ‘Dude, you’re a really friendly person, you’re good to me, I like the way you help others’. That’s sort of where that inspiration comes from. Like the world is getting more and more hostile and that’s not where we should be.”

And yet you have Bryce Paul in the band, who embodies all of the above.

Like Sand

Anders: "Sometimes you feel like Superman, sometimes the dog from Garfield.” ... did not expect a Garfield reference from Anders, but actually arguably a perfect way to describe this nonsense of a song.

The Truth

Anders "t’s still very much In Flames.” - How so?

Bjorn: “this one is related to stuff we have done in the past, all the way back to the first days, but in different clothes"

I'm sorry but what? How the fuck does The Truth relate in any way to "the first days"? These kind of quotes are what make me think these two don't understand anything about their legacy or the music that they created. That or they are just talking total BS as usual and intentionally trolling the older fans.

Anders: “Lyrically it’s about how the most honest thing we have is our kids, because they are not programmed…”

Björn: “…yet.”

Anders: “Right, yet. You are formed by the society and people you are around, what you see and what people say to you. It just mystifies me how can grown-ups can treat each other in the hostile way we do and at the same time look at our kids and, say…”

Yeah I don't get this from the lyrics at all.

In My Room

I can remember when we were bashing the stupidity of this song title and lyrics Slave mentioning that Anders was talking from the perspective of the 'room' being the inside of his mind and I thought that was an interesting way to interpret it. However...

Anders: "Lyrically speaking… it’s so easy to stay in your room in your little bubble, and complain about everything outside of that, but you’re sort of not entitled until you go out into the world and take those battles yourself. That’s a typical view on society, everybody knows better than everybody else. You think you say something good and then someone comes with a stick and says, ‘You can’t say that, it’s wrong’. And we’re so fast judging people.”

Turns out Anders isn't that deep, it was literally just about somebody in their room trolling on UM or whatever.

Anders: "Like most of the songs, we want to get to the point very quickly.”

Well at least he's honest.

Before I Fall

Anders: “It was the last track ‘in’ to be honest, because we had eleven tracks which was what we planned, but as we said, it’s important to have that dynamic on the album and we felt there was something missing, so we put it in there.”

Considering this is one of the better received songs on the album it's funny that it almost didn't make it.

Through My Eyes

Bjorn: "Sometimes it’s too easy in a way to create a really fast, energetic, aggressive song – we could probably do ten of those songs, but there’s a big lack of dynamics in that. We love that obviously, we’ve done that all through our career, but [we felt], ‘This album has so much more to offer, so we shouldn’t rush through it’.”

Maybe you should have tried harder considering how much this one sucks. Also "this album has so much more to offer" ... lol, no.

Anders: “That song is like ‘In Flames Format 1A’ ha ha.”

HA HA. Yeah, OK. The pair of them basically saying barely any effort was put into this one. It shows.

Battles

Anders: "we also can’t write about dragons or war or politics in a big way – it’s not us and why should I compete with someone who can do it so much better?"

You probably could if you actually tried. What a sad statement from somebody who used to write such good lyrics.

Here Until Forever

Anders: "I wrote the lyrics for Come Clarity – which I have tattooed – for my daughter when she was younger and my son saw this and asked, ‘Daddy can you write a lyric for me some day?’. I wasn’t ready to write a lyric that was good enough, because if your son asks for a lyric it better be good as it will be there forever, but writing this one it came pretty quickly in the end."

Should have waited longer.

Underneath My Skin

Björn: “In the beginning it felt really dark and it’s interesting how it changed its audial appearance from the rough demos to being recorded properly. I’m amazed at the journey it took.”

I'd be amazed to hear this too. Did it go from actually being decent to just being utter drivel?

Anders: Anders: “Put it this way, we know how to write In Flames songs, we don’t know the theory to be able to talk about it!”

You sure about that?

Wallflower

Björn: “Anders was talking about ‘space metal’ earlier… we felt the album needed something that wasn’t ‘In Flames Format 1’ – quickly getting into the chorus and stuff – and wanted to have something that built all the way through the song to something big in the end. And that’s what we did. So it starts off with something small, and we add instruments and sounds and stuff to make it sound – not to sound too cliché – a proper musical journey. We haven’t done a song like this since [2008’s] The Chosen Pessimist, and it’s a format we wanted to try it again.”

Niclas has said he wrote most of Wallflower, so kind of weird Bjorn doesn't even mention him. No wonder he left.
 
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OK let's have a laugh, Battles track-by-track from Hipster and Bjorn's perspective...

https://www.loudersound.com/features/in-flames-track-by-track-guide-to-new-album-battles

The End

Anders: “In today’s society everything is so fast, it’s like, ‘Next one, next one, next one…’ All we judge other people on is the way they look, the last vacation they’ve been on, the last beer they’ve had… with social media, what I want you to see is how happy I am, how great my life might be. It’s very superficial and we never say, ‘Dude, you’re a really friendly person, you’re good to me, I like the way you help others’. That’s sort of where that inspiration comes from. Like the world is getting more and more hostile and that’s not where we should be.”

And yet you have Bryce Paul in the band, who embodies all of the above.

Man, even I thought "The End" wasn't one of those songs. Can't believe I'm losing respect for it that it didn't even have.

The Truth

Anders "t’s still very much In Flames.” - How so?

Bjorn: “this one is related to stuff we have done in the past, all the way back to the first days, but in different clothes"

I'm sorry but what? How the fuck does The Truth relate in any way to "the first days"? These kind of quotes are what make me think these two don't understand anything about their legacy or the music that they created. That or they are just talking total BS as usual and intentionally trolling the older fans.

Anders: “Lyrically it’s about how the most honest thing we have is our kids, because they are not programmed…”

Björn: “…yet.”

Anders: “Right, yet. You are formed by the society and people you are around, what you see and what people say to you. It just mystifies me how can grown-ups can treat each other in the hostile way we do and at the same time look at our kids and, say…”

Yeah I don't get this from the lyrics at all.

Sadly, that's what I expected the meaning to be. Shame that the lyrics seem like they were written by the kids.

Before I Fall

Anders: “It was the last track ‘in’ to be honest, because we had eleven tracks which was what we planned, but as we said, it’s important to have that dynamic on the album and we felt there was something missing, so we put it in there.”

Considering this is one of the better received songs on the album it's funny that it almost didn't make it.

That reminds me of "Holy Roller" by Spiritbox. It was in the same sort of situation as "In My Room", but it's the reason why Spiritbox made it as big as they have. Shame it's one of the few good songs on that album.

Battles

Anders: "we also can’t write about dragons or war or politics in a big way – it’s not us and why should I compete with someone who can do it so much better?"

You probably could if you actually tried. What a sad statement from somebody who used to write such good lyrics.

Hi, "Burn", "House", "State of Slow Decay", and the second, fourth, and fifth fucking songs on this album would like to speak with you, Anders.

Here Until Forever

Anders: "I wrote the lyrics for Come Clarity – which I have tattooed – for my daughter when she was younger and my son saw this and asked, ‘Daddy can you write a lyric for me some day?’. I wasn’t ready to write a lyric that was good enough, because if your son asks for a lyric it better be good as it will be there forever, but writing this one it came pretty quickly in the end."

Should have waited longer.

Real talk, if they had just played this straight, no poppy bullshit, no autotune, probably just make it acoustic, this song would've been fantastic. I don't think the lyrics are bad at all, and it's one I don't feel horrible about listening to.

Underneath My Skin

Björn: “In the beginning it felt really dark and it’s interesting how it changed its audial appearance from the rough demos to being recorded properly. I’m amazed at the journey it took.”

I'd be amazed to hear this too. Did it go from actually being decent to just being utter drivel?

Anders: Anders: “Put it this way, we know how to write In Flames songs, we don’t know the theory to be able to talk about it!”

You sure about that?

Agony.

Wallflower

Björn: “Anders was talking about ‘space metal’ earlier… we felt the album needed something that wasn’t ‘In Flames Format 1’ – quickly getting into the chorus and stuff – and wanted to have something that built all the way through the song to something big in the end. And that’s what we did. So it starts off with something small, and we add instruments and sounds and stuff to make it sound – not to sound too cliché – a proper musical journey. We haven’t done a song like this since [2008’s] The Chosen Pessimist, and it’s a format we wanted to try it again.”

Niclas has said he wrote most of Wallflower, so kind of weird Bjorn doesn't even mention him. No wonder he left.

Considering that the cool riff from "I Am Above" (The one starting at 0:34) is more or less ripped from "In Splendour" by Niclas' main band, Engel, I'm not sure what anyone would expect. He didn't exactly get credit for that either.
 
Real talk, if they had just played this straight, no poppy bullshit, no autotune, probably just make it acoustic, this song would've been fantastic. I don't think the lyrics are bad at all, and it's one I don't feel horrible about listening to.

I know it's one of @eochaid's favourite songs, but yeah, there is some potential there. Opening riffs are pretty nice. Chorus would be decent with better production (actually sounds fine live). It's not a million miles away from being an OK song, but compared to their previous ballads (even stuff like WEWO on Siren Charms) it's way below par.
 
"It sucks, but I like it" is a great way to describe it, even if that's a bit untruthful about its quality.
 
It's just such an IFWT JesterHead crew comment... this is exactly how so many of them used to be, especially back in the day before Siren Charms. Didn't matter if a song was amazing, OK or shit, the JH crew would be calling it the greatest song ever made (tied with every other IF song in existence) and anybody saying anything remotely critical was a hater. Basically the JesterHead forums when they were still a thing.
 
It's just such an IFWT JesterHead crew comment... this is exactly how so many of them used to be, especially back in the day before Siren Charms. Didn't matter if a song was amazing, OK or shit, the JH crew would be calling it the greatest song ever made (tied with every other IF song in existence) and anybody saying anything remotely critical was a hater. Basically the JesterHead forums when they were still a thing.

Well, that's fucking stupid.
 
You basically had the JesterHead forums where everything was rainbows and sunshine, super positive... then this place which was kind of the anti-JH :D probably too much in the other direction, people being a bit too critical. It was around 2011 SOAPF thread when things balanced out on here and we just had a group of cool, chilled out IF fans shooting the shit and debating the band's merits and flaws. Been that way ever since for the most part. I think most of the regulars have been here at least since 2014 Siren Charms thread, and some guys like Starforsaken and Jabi were here in the early 2000s :cool: true veterans. I joined in 2008 so that's... 14 years, fuck.
 
I love In Flames and would absolutely die on the hill for so much of what they did (And for Anders as a vocalist), but fuck that, I would not like it on there whatsoever. That's the sort of shit I absolutely hate about some band fanbases.
 
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I know it's one of @eochaid's favourite songs, but yeah, there is some potential there. Opening riffs are pretty nice. Chorus would be decent with better production (actually sounds fine live). It's not a million miles away from being an OK song, but compared to their previous ballads (even stuff like WEWO on Siren Charms) it's way below par.
I still cannot read the lyrics without laughing hard :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:.
 
I love In Flames and would absolutely die on the hill for so much of what they did (And for Anders as a vocalist), but fuck that, I would not like it on there whatsoever. That's the sort of shit I absolutely hate about some band fanbases.

It was a bit unbearable in the pre-Siren Charms days. Nowadays nowhere near as many IF loyalists as their popularity has declined a fair bit since those days. I think even for many of the IFWT crew SC/Battles was too much for them.

I still cannot read the lyrics without laughing hard :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:.

But when you hear those chorus lyrics you can't help a tear coming to your eye as you sing along with Anders :heh:
 
I can remember when I went to see them in 2019 Anders and Bjorn were seriously into it, too :D like, both of them belting out the chorus and smiling like they were playing Jotun or something. I couldn't really hate them for playing it, even though I didn't want to hear it, as it seemed to mean a lot to both of them. House on the other hand made me want to throw up the middle fingers and get myself ejected from the venue.
 
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To be fair, it's not only about the lyrics. The song is pretty bad and forced. But, the lyrics are funny.
 
The song is basically centred around dat singalong chrous - which on a different album with different production would probably have been OK. Problem is the rest of the song is anaemic as fuck. There's not really anything else there worth a shit, unless you count generic Bjorn solo #142.
 
You basically had the JesterHead forums where everything was rainbows and sunshine, super positive... then this place which was kind of the anti-JH :D probably too much in the other direction, people being a bit too critical. It was around 2011 SOAPF thread when things balanced out on here and we just had a group of cool, chilled out IF fans shooting the shit and debating the band's merits and flaws. Been that way ever since for the most part. I think most of the regulars have been here at least since 2014 Siren Charms thread, and some guys like Starforsaken and Jabi were here in the early 2000s :cool: true veterans. I joined in 2008 so that's... 14 years, fuck.

This isn't even my first account. I had one before this that was primarily used on the official In Flames and Nevermore forums. Man I wish they didn't delete that IF forum completely. I would have loved to go through and see what kind of bullshit I posted back then :D

If you follow In Flames on Facebook (if you're that old), you can still see a fair bit of pandering there. I actually stopped following for that reason, but I check in every now and then and it still seems present. I think a debate is fun. The problem is, it's never civil on social media. Even when Metal Injection or MetalSucks or some other metal media post about In Flames, it always leads to the same thing, which is some form of elitism.
 
I feel like the chorus is pretty bad. Rushed or something. Forced. As if he's trying to be more... Emotive than he really feels. Does it make sense?