New album Foregone out February 2023

Sadly Ciko would become one in a sea of fanboys and fangirls :D I was browsing Anders' insta the other day and it was pretty funny, especially some of the women desperately trying to get his attention. That was interesting. @ciko_gfb if you're on insta you need to get yourself involved before these harlots take your man away :eek:

I always like whatever Anders post, sadly I'm not on the comment part, YET! :D :D

Also, I just remembered your signature @DE4life

"We wanted to evolve as an artists and musicians, to make timeless masterpieces - so we started doing 3 minute radio hits. The crowd was shit back in the '90 or early '00, but when we started doing stuff like Disconnected - wow, mayhem, mosh pits everywhere, those true metalheads in the first row, die-hard fans."

Looks like this one is kinda true? The crowd is really dead when they play something from earlier days. :D Only handful of people can recognize that earlier songs, so IF is kinda right with not playing them, I guess. :D
 


Another upload of Stand Ablaze along with Alias. Lmao at the crowd sitting there during Stand Ablaze like '...wut'
 
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Also, I just remembered your signature @DE4life

"We wanted to evolve as an artists and musicians, to make timeless masterpieces - so we started doing 3 minute radio hits. The crowd was shit back in the '90 or early '00, but when we started doing stuff like Disconnected - wow, mayhem, mosh pits everywhere, those true metalheads in the first row, die-hard fans."

Looks like this one is kinda true? The crowd is really dead when they play something from earlier days. :D Only handful of people can recognize that earlier songs, so IF is kinda right with not playing them, I guess. :D

I mean, not really the point A88 was getting at :D but the band have conditioned the fans to know nothing about the older stuff due to rarely playing anything beyond a few 'hits' from the earlier records. Most old IF fans are long gone and aren't interested in going to watch them perform shit from ASOP, SC or Battles... so yeah, it's to be expected the crowds at their shows would just be confused by their older stuff.

What A88 was pointing out is the bullshit excuses the band came up with for moving to commercial metal as opposed to continuing their old sound. We all know why they did it, but they've always refused to just admit it and instead tried to blame fans "not moving", which was just stupid.
 
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Fans don't know songs that they never play. Who would have guessed?

Well, not the same fans.

I really doubt that some kid who likes Battles has a soft spot for 90s melodeath.

But at least their bullshit theory about old songs sounding bad because you can't possibly play guitar harmonies live is proven to be just that...bullshit.
 
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Can't imagine new AE is going to convert anyone who doesn't enjoy the current incarnation of the band. It's less melodic than Will to Power, which is a shame, but I guess some people may prefer it that way. For me there's no track here on par with Blood in the Water, or even The World is Yours or The Race (although Deceiver, Deceiver is basically a lesser version of The Race). It's a shame Alissa doesn't use her clean vocals a little more to add some variety. She's got a great singing voice but it's rarely utilised. The Watcher has the same issue as The Eagle Flies Alone in that the chorus melody is just a wimpy guitar in the background. Sounded way better live when the melodies were in the front.

First four songs and Sunset Over the Empire are OK. The rest mostly forgettable to me. Album artwork is pretty cool though.
 
I've always thought their excuse of songs sounding bad live as a reason to not play them was bullshit. They're a band that relies on singles, plain and simple. I maintain that their audience might come to know their back catalog if they would just play those songs more often. We live in a time where people don't digest music the same way anymore. Most people don't listen to albums front to back. Look at Spotify numbers and you'll see that. So, if you want people to know your older music, you've gotta meet them halfway. Of course, I don't think they care, so they don't really do it.
 
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I'm still baffled that of all the older material they could choose they picked Stand Ablaze. Think of all the tracks they could have picked from TJR or Whoracle, which at least some of the audience would have been more familiar with - Artifacts, TJR, Jotun, FFTG, Morphing Into Primal, Gyroscope...

Picking Stand Ablaze, which neither Anders nor Bjorn have any historical link to beyond playing it on a few live shows in the late 90s, just screams desperation. 'Look how old school we are'. It just feels calculated and fake to me.
 
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I'm sure it was. They can say they're not threatened by The Halo Effect, but anyone with half a brain can see that they are. And maybe they should be. Has any band in this realm had this much steam prior to an actual album release? They've done extremely well thus far.
 
Mikael himself said during their Wacken set that no band has had the kind of headstart THE have. It's been an incredible response, but also shows how much the MDM genre has stalled since the mid-2000s. All of the big bands either shit the bed or disbanded.
 
Because, for most of the bands... They don't sound new or exciting. I mean... They don't have their own sound. They sound just like a repetition or interpretation of what the first bands did. Mostly like Power Metal. De difference is that Power Metal is far more accesible.
 
Eh, Power Metal was all about fantasy dragon fighting and shit in the 90s and early 00s, now it's evolved more towards cyberpunk and incorporated a lot of 80s new wave elements and/or gothic elements. There's actually more evolution in that genre than probably any other. Certainly more than the likes of thrash or death metal.