New album Foregone out February 2023

[krofius]

Gave it a spin, the ''metal'' side is definitely an improvement over the last couple albums at least. Really like Anders utilizing his death growls continuously on the album.
However like the last 2 albums, the overprocessed cleans turn me completely off of basically every song they feature. They are to ''catchy'' sounding and poppy. SOAPF is probably my favorite album when it comes to Anders cleans. A prime example being Where the Dead Ships Dwell. One of my alltime favorite choruses from IF/Anders, and it's purely because of the vocals. They are unique sounding.
I get people like the catchy and poppy choruses, especially people who aren't into the more heavy stuff, for them it can probably be a good bridge dynamically with the heavier sounding verses on the album. But for me it's just fucking boring honestly. It's way to much "anthem" sounding. And even in the verses with clean vocals, like Pure Light of Mind, they have this processed effect which ruins it completely. There is plenty of other songs where he can do the calm cleans in a good way imo, like The Chosen Pessimist, Come Clarity, Dawn of A New Day & Metaphor. Those still sound unique and hard to copy (whether you like it or not), recent couple albums the cleans has lost the Anders touch imo.

I'm sure people a lot of people will love the album though, especially people who love more catchier/poppier sounding clean vocals. That's completely fine, it's just not for me. Rhythm guitars are the biggest step-up imo. I thoroughly enjoyed it throughout most of the album. Drums also really nice.

Pros:
Production is much better than Battles & I, The Mask. Much more crispy, crunchy and clear sounding guitars and drums, without sounding overproduced.
Instrumentally it sounds better than in many years
Anders harsh vocals sound great, especially the increased utilization of death growls

Cons:
The overprocessed poppy sounding vocals completely drags the album down. And the cadence/melodies sometimes just sounds so fucking weird and off to me. And every song doesn't need to go for a catchy chorus with the same formula either..

Sadly, like last couple albums, won't probably be spinning this one much. Maybe it can grow on me a bit like other albums have, we'll see. But I just know the overly poppy sounding vocals does not scream high replay value to my ears.

But then again, I don't really listen to that much IF anymore anyways. But I will say, they sounded fucking great live when I saw them in December. So I will probably catch them live more times for sure.

 

[The Grayfox]

This!

I'm always amazed when people are impressed when they hear double bass, random chugs and 0-7-9-10 with some low growls over all that.

It is something that every metal band on the planet can come up with in like 120 seconds.

If something like this was done by a band called In Water from Latvia, and this was their first album, nobody would care. But it is In Flames, so it's a return to the form, unparalleled melodic brutality, staying true to themselves while pushing boundaries of modern metal music and similar nonsense.

My feeling on this is that it comes from people who have never picked up and played a musical instrument. I mean, if something sounds good to you, it sounds good I guess. But musicians tend to analyze the music a lot more because they understand what goes into it. So some random guy's "yeah! Heavy!" reaction isn't going to be the same reaction as somebody who actually plays guitar. That being said, the guitar work on this record is generic as hell. I'm not even a guitarist and I can hear that.

Having somebody like Chris Broderick in the band isn't a bad thing. He's a very good guitarist. However, his background isn't in anything that resembles older In Flames work. So Bjorn bouncing ideas off of him isn't necessarily going to be in anyone's favor, unless they plan to keep going down the route they're headed. Which, let's be honest, they most likely will.

Still, at this point I would just take some natural sounding vocals. They are so fucking over-processed. There is nothing organic about the vocals on this album. And what baffles me is that a band of professional musicians would think that it would go unnoticed or not be heavily criticized. I would be embarrassed to release music with vocals like that. This isn't a hip hop album or a pop album where that shit flies and is expected. It's a metal album, or it's supposed to be anyway.

 

[DE4life]

My expectation with modern IF is that maybe I'll get a couple of songs from their new album that I'll find decent and throw onto my random playlist. Didn't get much out of SC/Battles. ITM was a decent haul with 6 or 7 tracks. Foregone back to just being one or two, which at this point would be my edits of TGD and MYM, as for me they are closest to the ITM sound. I did have to remove the Joey line from TGD, though, and also reduce vocal volume on both tracks. Never had to do that before (although to be fair, also never had the ability to do that before).

Oh, actually the beginning instrumental I'll probably move over too... so maybe three.

 

[ThePhobiac]

I'm a guitarist and songwriter myself, and I don't see any glaring issues on this album, nor does anything seem so derivative or banal that it would catch my attention. On the contrary, there are some parts that I've been trying to learn on my own because they sound great to me (SoSD main riff, MYM verse riff, stuff from both Foregones). But I think that's because I've long since stopped being all that critical about guitar work in metal music. If the overall feel is good to me, I'm fine with even the simplest chord progression -- and I think there are cases where simpler is better. Maybe the me from ten years ago would have been irked more by this record, lol.

And I feel like 0-7-9-10 is a staple of the Gothenburg style, so hearing a lot of that on this record isn't a bad thing to me.

 

[A88]

I'm a guitarist and songwriter myself, and I don't see any glaring issues on this album, nor does anything seem so derivative or banal that it would catch my attention.

Glaring issues no, derivative yes.

It's a competent album, but quite an ordinary one. I really struggle to remember a single awesome riff or out-of-this-world melody or solo. It is just OK.

And now I'm maybe talking nonsense, but I was more interested in musical and compositional clusterfuck that was SC than this, although Foregone is objectively a better album.

To my ears it is not interesting from a technical perspective (especially in this day and age), it is not filled with some heavy emotions and it is not weird/original. It is just there.

And that is a crime. Music is art. Art should cause some emotional response. I can get that from obscure black metal, hip-hop, 90s trance or 2022 mainstream pop, but I'm not getting any here.

It is very subjective I know, but I don't feel like Anders or Bjorn really have something to say with their music anymore.

 

[Moonshield_]

5 minutes before the new album is out! I hope it will be a return to the Lunar Strain / Subterranean era but I have to say I’m pretty confident this time

 

[Ilias7]

I'm a guitarist and songwriter myself, and I don't see any glaring issues on this album, nor does anything seem so derivative or banal that it would catch my attention. On the contrary, there are some parts that I've been trying to learn on my own because they sound great to me (SoSD main riff, MYM verse riff, stuff from both Foregones). But I think that's because I've long since stopped being all that critical about guitar work in metal music. If the overall feel is good to me, I'm fine with even the simplest chord progression -- and I think there are cases where simpler is better. Maybe the me from ten years ago would have been irked more by this record, lol.

And I feel like 0-7-9-10 is a staple of the Gothenburg style, so hearing a lot of that on this record isn't a bad thing to me.

Totally agree! I'm also a guitarist myself and this record did make me want to try some songs on my guitar. SoSD is actually fun to play.
I can appreciate in a different way a complicated mind blowing prog riff or a simple but cool sounding one. And let's face it, In Flames were never about music complexity, but about melodies and emotions. There are musical moments in the new album that bring me emotions, while in Battles for example there were almost none.

 

[eochaid]

It's a competent album, but quite an ordinary one. I really struggle to remember a single awesome riff or out-of-this-world melody or solo. It is just OK.

Because this is music put at the service of the voice. It feels, to me, as if the music is just there to give some background and feel the empty spaces.

To my ears it is not interesting from a technical perspective (especially in this day and age), it is not filled with some heavy emotions and it is not weird/original. It is just there.

That's what made IF my favourite band. The emotions transmitted through the music.

And that is a crime. Music is art. Art should cause some emotional response. I can get that from obscure black metal, hip-hop, 90s trance or 2022 mainstream pop, but I'm not getting any here.

I agree but, the fact that we don't have an emotional response to this album doesn't mean that other people won't. of course, robotic Anders doesn't make it easy but there's a lot of people that feel something (something else than boringness) when listening to music like this. After all, emotions are subjective.

Though I agree that it doesn't looks as if transmitting emotions was the main goal behind this album.

 

[TheJestersDoor]

I'm a guitarist and songwriter myself, and I don't see any glaring issues on this album, nor does anything seem so derivative or banal that it would catch my attention. On the contrary, there are some parts that I've been trying to learn on my own because they sound great to me (SoSD main riff, MYM verse riff, stuff from both Foregones). But I think that's because I've long since stopped being all that critical about guitar work in metal music. If the overall feel is good to me, I'm fine with even the simplest chord progression -- and I think there are cases where simpler is better. Maybe the me from ten years ago would have been irked more by this record, lol.

And I feel like 0-7-9-10 is a staple of the Gothenburg style, so hearing a lot of that on this record isn't a bad thing to me.

I learned how to play the entirety of foregone Pt. 1 very quickly as I love the riffs, I have the whole song down except the solos which I straight up can't play (I shared a clip of me trying it a bit a few pages back). Also learned most of SOSD and TGD. can't wait to learn some more of the good riffs!

Graveland has my favorite 0-7-9-10 melodeath riffs at the moment, i always overlooked that song on TJR but having seen it live twice now it just kicks ass.

 

[Xpyro125]

It might be a bit unrelated overall, but I just realized that A Dialogue's riffing and harsh vocal pre-chorus are eerily similar to Voices.

 

[Cobra8472]

Gave it a spin, the ''metal'' side is definitely an improvement over the last couple albums at least. Really like Anders utilizing his death growls continuously on the album.
However like the last 2 albums, the overprocessed cleans turn me completely off of basically every song they feature. They are to ''catchy'' sounding and poppy. SOAPF is probably my favorite album when it comes to Anders cleans. A prime example being Where the Dead Ships Dwell. One of my alltime favorite choruses from IF/Anders, and it's purely because of the vocals. They are unique sounding.
I get people like the catchy and poppy choruses, especially people who aren't into the more heavy stuff, for them it can probably be a good bridge dynamically with the heavier sounding verses on the album. But for me it's just fucking boring honestly. It's way to much "anthem" sounding. And even in the verses with clean vocals, like Pure Light of Mind, they have this processed effect which ruins it completely. There is plenty of other songs where he can do the calm cleans in a good way imo, like The Chosen Pessimist, Come Clarity, Dawn of A New Day & Metaphor. Those still sound unique and hard to copy (whether you like it or not), recent couple albums the cleans has lost the Anders touch imo.
.

I agree - and each album after it has really driven home the quality of SoaPF for me. While many of the riffs on it are really.. meh (way too much chug on some of the songs, especially verse riffs) - but it just worked. Because it still felt like In Flames, the production was excellent, and Anders sounded authentic and good in both cleans and harsh vocals.

The overproduced, layered robotic cleans on Foregone are a disaster compared to SoaPF. The cadence and rhythm are frequently strange too.

I really hope that they take the attitude that they went into Foregone with and go back to Swedish production. Work with Bergstrand again, do some authentic In Flames stuff - not the Americanized, Howard Benson stuff.

 

[Moonshield_]

Juste a thought about Bjorn : I find it kind of strange that an old-school heavy metal guy like him who barely listen to any new music can actually release such modern stuff with his band

 

[Moonshield_]

I really hope that they take the attitude that they went into Foregone with and go back to Swedish production. Work with Bergstrand again, do some authentic In Flames stuff - not the Americanized, Howard Benson stuff.

Yes, please.

 

[Cobra8472]

Yes, please.

I personally don't see it happening. I think, and I try to say this in the most respectful way I can, that Björn and Anders simply lack a work ethic when it comes to the Studio and composing- not in pure physical terms, but mental. They went through the pandemic without writing any new music- an amazing, ripe time to dwell in your home studio and compose amazing songs. Instead they, again, threw them together in a house in LA off the cuff. Why!? They've noted in interviews that it's really an unfortunate means to an end (playing live!) - so it's something they have to "get through". I somewhat expect that they suffer from a feeling of dread when it comes to writing and make production choices to alleviate that as much as possible.

It seems that Benson makes the actual process of writing and recording an album really smooth and enjoyable. If I were to play armchair psychologist, I think he takes some of the pressure away when it comes to figuring out what is good and what is bad (just that we all here can agree that his version of good is not in tune with our own).

Meaning essentially: working with Benson feels good - it takes away the uncertainty, the nervousness, the creative standstill that can happen when the creative process is entirely on your shoulders. It makes sense, but it also means we're all screwed as In Flames fans because the brine is getting fucked with fundamentally.

Heck- working with Benson has even made the process of replacing members smooth and easy as all of these people are in some way associated or connected with him.

 

[DE4life]

I think there's some truth to that, but worth noting that Anders and Bjorn hated working with others on Battles, and took back at least some form of control for ITM and Foregone. So, most likely they just want control over certain areas.

Sadly they are likely with Benson for the long haul now, which pretty much puts me off IF going forward. I just can't deal with those cleans, and even the music itself just sounds... manufactured. Not bad, as such, just inauthentic. I've been listening a lot to the Sabrelight Chronicles album by Fellowship recently and the difference between how this sounds and makes me feel, compared to Foregone, is night and day. A vocalist who has a fantastic voice and needs practically zero processing, layering, autotune, etc, guitarists who are creating some lovely neoclassical melodies, powerful drums & bass, positive lyrics, generally upbeat overall sound and just a genuine pleasure to listen to.

In comparison, Foregone just sounds really plastic and unnatural. The album doesn't really flow, the vocals are processed into oblivion, guitarwork is quite routine and only decent in parts. Drumming I will say is great, so props to Tanner for that. Lad done good. Bryce and his bass I barely noticed, but that's par the course for IF anyway. I'm not really sure what this album wants me to feel, or what it's trying to express. It's just a smorgasbord of mostly metal musical ideas bundled together. ATG tribute, CC era tribute, alt rock in Flames, metalcore In Flames, acoustic In Flames... various things are here, but regardless of their quality they don't really converge into a consistent, pleasant narrative. Considering Anders always talks about listening to an album from start to finish, and claiming that's how IF write their music, I find their approach here quite baffling.

Foregone isn't a Siren Charms or Battles. It's better than that, but for me at least not by much.

 

[DE4life]

Another thing, which may be more personal to me, is that I like when an album has an identity. When you think of it you immediately have a certain sound or theme in mind. Can anyone honestly define what Foregone's identity is? For THE we can say early-to-mid-2000s MDM. For any Insomnium album you can define their brand of MDM, even if it's not to my taste. For Beast in Black's Dark Connection it's cyberpunk/scifi inspired melodic metal. In terms of older IF albums you have STYE's more american metal approach, CC's metalcore/MDM mixture, can't really think of the right words for SOAPF but you know a song from that album when you hear it. The sound is very distinctive. Same for TJR, Whoracle, Colony, Clayman and reroute. Even Lunar Strain.

How would we even begin to define Foregone? What is it, in simple terms? To me it feels like an album where most of the songs come from completely different metal sub-genres to one and other, which from my perspective at least is not a good thing.

 

[A88]

I've been listening a lot to the Sabrelight Chronicles album by Fellowship recently and the difference between how this sounds and makes me feel, compared to Foregone, is night and day. A vocalist who has a fantastic voice and needs practically zero processing, layering, autotune, etc, guitarists who are creating some lovely neoclassical melodies, powerful drums & bass, positive lyrics, generally upbeat overall sound and just a genuine pleasure to listen to.

I really fucking hate power metal, but this one is such a feelgood album.

 

[DE4life]

I really fucking hate power metal, but this one is such a feelgood album.

Yeah, these guys are just unapologetically themselves and I love that. Plus the guitarwork and vocals are just legitimately great, regardless of what anyone thinks of the genre. Trails off a bit towards the end of the album for me, but the first nine songs are fantastic.

 

[Cobra8472]

Another thing, which may be more personal to me, is that I like when an album has an identity. When you think of it you immediately have a certain sound or theme in mind. Can anyone honestly define what Foregone's identity is? For THE we can say early-to-mid-2000s MDM. For any Insomnium album you can define their brand of MDM, even if it's not to my taste. For Beast in Black's Dark Connection it's cyberpunk/scifi inspired melodic metal. In terms of older IF albums you have STYE's more american metal approach, CC's metalcore/MDM mixture, can't really think of the right words for SOAPF but you know a song from that album when you hear it. The sound is very distinctive. Same for TJR, Whoracle, Colony, Clayman and reroute. Even Lunar Strain.

How would we even begin to define Foregone? What is it, in simple terms? To me it feels like an album where most of the songs come from completely different metal sub-genres to one and other, which from my perspective at least is not a good thing.

Agreed! And I think that lack of feeling is exactly what happens when a song is "designed by committee" as the Benson albums feel. They're like great songs but with the edges filed down - edges which would give it a certain atmosphere or spirit. Even IF's worst like STYE and ASOP have a feeling which makes them enjoyable listens (at times) and recognizable; there's an air of authenticity about them that Battles, ITM and Foregone simply don't have.

I think this is what I mean when the filter of "what is good" is deferred to a large extent to Benson. The "feeling" of In Flames is a combination of composing and being an editor of the material (i.e.; picking where to go with the work) and when that changes- the music as a whole will change. Even though the elements can be very similar, the whole ends up being very different. Anders sensibilities about a vocal melody, line or delivery are different from Benson, but Anders sensibilities are In Flames. The subtleties combine to be what we know as In Flames, and those are being fucked with in a fundamental way.

The problem I have with Foregone is similar to the problem I have with a lot of American bands which also suffer from this, like Trivium for that matter. Not sure if it's inherent to more heavy handed production on that side of the Atlantic.

 

[DE4life]

Completely agree with you, although I'd say Battles and ITM have more of an identity than Foregone simply by virtue of the songs sounding like they should be on the same album as each other. That IF feeling, as you describe it, isn't there like it used to be... but at least these albums are consistent in terms of their sound, for better or for worse. Foregone is more like Siren Charms in being a bit of a schizophrenic mess.