- Jul 25, 2016
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That's not really a shock. Foregone generally had a decent mix, so as long as they aim for a similar standard I'm not displeased. Just less processing on Anders' cleans please
New album Foregone out February 2023
- Thread starter TheJestersDoor
- Start date
Moonshield_
Active Member
Nice drawings, story wise it's like an initiatory journey in abysmal landscapes
The Grayfox
Nija
Personally I feel that Foregone production wise is excellent. As a massive Nordström fan, I would honestly put it pretty close quality wise to the classic Colony and Clayman production. One of the main differences is simply in the amount of guitar layers and harmonies.
The other Benson albums are total crap; but everything sounds really great on Foregone. Powerful, clear and fairly organic. The main issue is of course the vocals (+ processing) on many of the tracks which could otherwise have been excellent (B minor, etc..).
If they channel Foregone Pt. 1 or the tremolo breakdown in End the Transmission throughout an entire album with the same production, we'd be in for a real treat.
The other Benson albums are total crap; but everything sounds really great on Foregone. Powerful, clear and fairly organic. The main issue is of course the vocals (+ processing) on many of the tracks which could otherwise have been excellent (B minor, etc..).
If they channel Foregone Pt. 1 or the tremolo breakdown in End the Transmission throughout an entire album with the same production, we'd be in for a real treat.
The Grayfox
Nija
Xpyro125
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- Dec 1, 2021
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If nothing else, I can at least have faith that Chris will be able/allowed to give us some ripping solos like he did on Foregone. I don’t think it’ll be enough to save the guitarwork, should it be similar to last time, but Chris’ parts always put a smile on my face during an otherwise rather dull album. I don’t really know about Liam or Jon, but I do hope they get to shine. The small injections of life from Chris and Tanner helped Foregone a ton, and I’m hoping that we’ll at least get that on the follow-up.
I’m not really sure how much I’ll talk about it as it releases, but I’m hoping my expectations are proven wrong since I do want to enjoy what they do next.
ThePhobiac
be at ease
I've always considered Come Clarity as their peak as a band, if you're using a venn diagram of commercial success/general popularity/musical excellence. Feels like it was pretty much all downhill from there, although SC was definitely the tipping point from a musical excellence perspective. It's still hard to believe such an experienced band could produce such an absolute failure of an album - in every respect. Jesper no longer being around was no excuse, as Bjorn had already proven with SOAPF that he could create a good album on his own. Hell, even ITM showed that they are still perfectly capable. Siren Charms was really an unforgivable misstep that would have been better off binned and replaced with a B-side album & unknown recordings (of which I'm sure they have some) album.
They seem to be more relevant today than they were during Jesper's time. And I'm talking in terms of popularity. Albums like SC and Battles, instead of being harmful for the band, only seem to have served to alienate long time fans and to reach to a ton lot more. Now, IF, has a bigger fanbase than they ever had before and SC and battles had a big impact on that.
Xpyro125
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It’s weird to me because I could absolutely see the numbers reflecting that, but part of me wonders how much of it is due to the internet becoming more and more mainstream, streamlined, accessible, and corporatized.
Culturally, I think they were far more relevant in the days of melodic metalcore— So many bands cited TJR and Clayman as massive influences on them, and in a weird way I think that looped back around to Come Clarity. I’m not really in with modern metalcore, but artists like BMTH, Spiritbox, ERRA, Poppy, etc. seem to be in the biggest spotlight right now. Foregone absolutely got a ton of new fans and won over a ton of long-time critics, but I haven’t really heard it be brought up in the same discussion as Eternal Blue, ERRA’s self-titled, I Disagree or Negative Spaces, nor whatever the hell BMTH put out that was so popular. I don’t think they’re a massive name anymore, particularly in mainly American spaces. Even with that though, they might honestly be in a better place reception-wise and numbers-wise than they were even back when Come Clarity or Reroute came out. I do think Battles and ITM in particular got the most new fans since ASOP, but neither of them compare to how Foregone got people. It’s just that the spaces for the big names have been filled, I guess.
I’m sure a massive part of it is my disdain for modern metalcore, but Foregone is essentially my Reroute where I no longer recognize the band I’ve loved. What I consider the classic IF melodies are gone, despite the actual classic melodies having been gone for a long time now. It’s a truly dialed down, more generic, Americanized sound. Sure, they first really downtuned on Reroute (I know they did on songs like Pinball Map before), but this is where it feels truly bland to me. The one bright side to it is that it’s genuinely helped me to find a little enjoyment in Battles, even if that album is far worse, and I genuinely kinda like Siren Charms now even though it’s bad too. Small blessings.
To me that all makes it all the more surprising that they really don’t play much from Foregone. This is what is proven to be what the people fell in love with, and somehow now they’ve decided to play a more selfless setlist. It’s fascinating, but I can’t complain in the slightest.
The Grayfox
Nija
I'm starting to feel really nostalgic. Between the new Nevermore mini-documentary that came out today and Angela Gossow most likely re-joining Arch Enemy and a fucking new Diablo II DLC (!!), I'm feeling great about entertainment right now.
Not In Flames though. Just other entertainment.
Not In Flames though. Just other entertainment.
- Jul 25, 2016
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Maybe it's the guitar nerd in me but I have always found the "In Flames downtuned after Clayman" comments you see everywhere online quite amusing.
Objectively speaking in flames has always been downtuned, playing 2 steps below E standard in C. They went from C standard exclusively to a mix of C standard and Drop A# on Colony with the title track and Ordinary Story followed by Pinball Map and As The Future Repeats Today on Clayman. Reroute is also mostly in C standard with only System, Egonomic, Minus and Black and White in Drop A# (2 more songs than on Clayman). The exception that stands out like a sore thumb is Transparent which is the only in flames song not based around C tuning in some capacity - its in drop G. Sick song mind you, but definitely an anomaly. Also quite ahead of it's time as a lot of modern bands use Drop G - notably Lorna Shore, a modern band I'm a big fan of. (Just saw them live last week, what a show by the way)
The difference in tunings In Flames use is a matter of a single step down on the low E string; from C standard C-F-A#-D#-G-C to A#-F-A#-D#-G-C.
Everything STYE onwards has exclusively been in Drop A#. I would personally love for them to write a few more songs in C standard, not because it's a "higher" tuning, but because playing riffs in a standard tuning as opposed to a drop tuning requires a different technique. If I could I'd get them to use Drop C (C-G-C-F-A-D) because as anyone who plays guitar knows, Drop C is peak guitar tuning.
Pointless info-dump I know, it's just something that's always amused me.
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- Jul 25, 2016
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It's a complicated one. Granted a lot of the big bands right now are complete ass (BMTH, Bad Omens, Slaughter to Prevail, Motionless in White, Falling in Reverse to name just a few) there also loads of bands absolutely KILLING it. Here's a few just off the top of my head; Sylosis, Rivers of Nihil, Fit For An Autopsy, Gatecreeper, Lorna Shore, the list goes on. I also don't know what this forum's opinion of March of the Unheard was but I Found it to be a huge step up from a solid foundation that was the first The Halo Effect album
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The Grayfox
Nija
Rivers of Nihil is such an excellent fucking band. I think there are a lot of metal bands doing it right currently, just maybe not in all sub-genres. I thought there were some really good releases last year: Shadow of Intent's "Imperium Delirium", Blackbraid III, the aforementioned Rivers of Nihil's self-titled, Paradise Lost put out my album of the year with "Ascension." I thought Dynazty's "Game of Faces" album was really fun, Amorphis's "Borderland" is another one of my favorites of the year, Lord of the Lost's "Opvs Noir" collection was quite good.
Xpyro125
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I think mainstream metal sucks at the moment, but venturing even a little bit outside what’s appearing front and center in everyone’s feeds shows a lot of promise… I just value what the metal community focuses on because it stands as a represents our music as a culture.
I didn’t realize they tuned that far down on Colony, I only first noticed it with Pinball Map.
Though I think feeding back into the prior point I was stating, I don’t mind In Flames’ prior use of downtuning (And other bands like Sevendust, as an example of a mainstream band doing it in the 90s and early 2000s) because a lot of times it was done with a far better sense of melody, groove, creativity, or a combination of the three. Hell, Transparent is one of my favorite ‘newer’ In Flames songs because of that sense of groove. I think a lot of modern core bands just amalgamated a ton of their influences in the laziest way possible, much like when nu metal became oversaturated with bands trying to capture the success of the titans of the subgenre. I’d argue Orbit Culture used to have a fantastic sense of groove and melodeath, but especially as their production’s worsened on the last couple albums I don’t feel it anymore. Speaking of mentioning Lorna Shore, Sun Eater is such a fantastic song, and I say that as someone who just does not like deathcore. Augment by ERRA is one of my favorite albums of all time, but they haven’t had a good album to me since Drift— Which is definitely a hot take considering modern fans praise their self-titled and Spiritbox’s Eternal Blue as the pinnacle of modern metal. To a far, far lesser extent, the same sort of reputation has been given to Foregone. It especially sucks to me that Meet Your Maker has such a well-regarded riff when 1. It’s honestly kinda shit, and 2. A Dialogue is right fucking there, that has a great riff. I don’t mean the one that rips Voices off (Though Voices absolutely has a fantastic riff), I mean the pre-chorus one.
It’s not always due to the compositions themselves, STYE being the big example there, but I’ve always found In Flames’ guitarwork really interesting, with some creative aspect to note. For STYE, it was the production doing the heavy lifting. For Come Clarity, the aggressive melodic metalcore is peak for the subgenre. For SoaPF, which had some of the most downtuned riffing for the band by that point, Björn nailed the sense groove and melodies. Even what might be a filler track to many, Enter Tragedy, goes from brooding downtuned riff to an urgent, melodic riff. I know that’s not a big accomplishment for one song, but I genuinely don’t think there’s a song on the album that misses guitar-wise. As bad as SC and Battles are, I’ve learned to enjoy the former a lot more since Foregone’s release. Siren Charms genuinely has a lot of stuff I like, and despite Battles being absolutely awful, there was very clearly a focus on melody that I’ve somehow come to miss.
As much as I love THE’s debut album, I completely agree. I can’t say it gave me everything I wanted, but it scratched the itch that the debut just barely missed out on. The covers EP is an effort I often forget about, but I’m still incredibly hyped for the third album. I just get the feeling the fire’s been reigniting in all the band members over time, and they’ve brought back the kind of melodic death metal I’ve been craving.
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