Fake, most likely. I've seen a lot of those kinds of images on Instagram in the past week or so.
Yeah, looks like another of these AI image fads that are going around at the moment. It did make me chuckle, though, so good job.
Fake, most likely. I've seen a lot of those kinds of images on Instagram in the past week or so.
As far as the pre-2000s albums - no chance. Everything pre-1999 got dumped like a sack of shit after Reroute, and even Colony only had a handful of songs played from it after 2002. Of course the modern audience is not going to care about those songs, and nor should the band expect them too. Randomly saying "if you don't like The jester Race you don't know us", as Anders has occasionally said over the years, rings hollow when you observe their treatment of the older albums in general. Even as far as both Anders and Bjorn talking about how the songs are basically shit because they weren't written to be played live - despite being played live successfully during the time period and growing their popularity enormously. For songs that are apparently dumpster fires live, they somehow managed to grow their fanbase like no other MDM band of that era. Must have just been because they looked so cool on stage.
For some reason they have decided to play Sober and Irrelevant for the first time since 2010 and I guess third time ever.
Not entirely sure I agree. I'd say ASOP's Bottled is Delight and Angers. ASOP's In Search for I is Sober and Irrelevant.
TCP & D&A are definitely worse than Sober & Irrelevant. Sober is quite basic but it's got decent enough riffs, energy, speed. Not a patch on the majority of their previous work but not bad or boring.
There are many ASOP songs I would prefer to hear live instead, though - either because they are better live tracks or better songs. Mirror's Truth, Condemned, Drenched in Fear or March to the Shore. Sober and Irrelevant, to me, falls into that category of "OK" songs on the album which have limited replay value, alongside Move Through Me and I'm the Highway.
TCP is one of those songs that needed more time to marinate, for me. It doesn't have enough ideas to justify its length. It's mostly just basic repeated chords throughout, and Anders' vocals... well, that's an ASOP problem in general, so, I won't pin it on this song alone.
I thought they did a much better job with Wallflower - one of the few songs on Battles to have any merit. It felt like they went back to the TCP formula but significantly improved it. Probably helps that Engelin wrote it. I only really think TCP has merit at the very end, but I'd never listen to the 6+ minutes beforehand just to get to that point.
I will say that they did a much better job with TCP live when I saw them in 2019. Ditched the intro, which thankfully shortened the song, and Anders' growled throughout - which actually fit the track quite well. Great growls too. I was pleasantly surprised.
All I know is that even if they choose to play TCP live (which is a mistake imo), it should NEVER be used as an opener, which they've done several times. It is an awful opener. Personally, I think it's an awful song to begin with, but Jesus, what a poor way to open a show. I remember when I saw Avenged Sevenfold back in 2002, they had like a 15 minute pre-tape intro and it sucked all the fucking air out of the room. Lights down, no band on stage, just a pre-tape. For FIFTEEN MINUTES. It was brutal. Obviously TCP isn't that extreme, but still.