1. There is always something that unmistakably sounds like In Flames.
2. There is always something that pushes the boundaries for our conception of what In Flames should sound like.
This is also true of I, The Mask.
The first four songs are what I’d call good, standard In Flames songs. Modern, up-tempo and mid-tempo melo-death groovers as we know them and love them. It’s what the Swedes do best. Especially ‘I Am Above’ rings well in my ears with Anders Fridén’s “I am above” grunts, which are then followed by totally melodic pieces. I think the contrast is fantastic.
Speaking of contrast, the fifth tune, ‘Follow Me’, is a break away from the preceding tunes with its acoustic intro and bird song. The quiet build-up turns into a melodic yet heavy riff with double bass-drumming, only to be turned into another acoustic piece. This interchange between acoustic guitar and melodic heaviness characterises the song overall, and for me, this is a song that really has grown on me the past few days.
With the sixth song, ‘(This Is Our) House’, Anders Fridén and the rest of the Gothenburg crew are yet again pushing the boundaries with a song that is so utterly catchy. Not so many days ago, their countrymen from Soilwork did it with basically the entire Verkligheten album, now it’s In Flames’ turn… This is an awesome song, and the message behind it is that we’ve got to do something to change the world if we want to survive. Couldn’t agree more. Amazing song.
‘We Will Remember’ has a touch of British pop music from the 80s, I can’t put the finger on which band exactly. Duran Duran? Not sure, but it matters not – it sounds great.
With ‘In This Life’, there is still a good deal of catchiness onboard, but truth is that this song won’t make it into the greatest hits compilation. If there’s a filler on this album, this is the one.
‘Burn’ is a more appealing piece and is closely related to the first four songs of the album. Good stuff.
With ‘Deep Inside’, new paths are trodden again. The oriental flavour of the intro and ensuing massive groove convince from the first second. Even the ballad-like bridge doesn’t ruin it. Very nice. I can already see thousands of fans making the ground shake as they jump along to beginning of this tune at festivals around the world.
The tradition of including a ballad hasn’t gone away for In Flames. In fact, there are two on this one. ‘All The Pain’ is an outpouring of emotions and angst in the way only Anders Fridén can do it from the very outset, but it turns into a pretty powerful piece as it goes along. The album finalé, ‘Stay With Me’, I can’t really get a grasp of. Granted, there’s something genuinely eerie about the atmosphere of it, but most of all, I think it’s not going anywhere, even if it grows into a crescendo of sorts towards the very end.
So, there it is, In Flames anno 2019. Still pushing boundaries for both themselves and metal music. There’s a couple of misses on the album in my humble view, but also standard killer In Flames songs and then a couple of truly amazing tunes. Which, I suppose, is also a standard of sorts when the band is In Flames.
]]>Soilwork never said me much, truth be told. I heard a song here and there, never was too impressed. Saw them at Wacken in 2003 and 2008, which didn’t really stick to memory. Then I finally saw Björn Strid and his compatriots at Aalborg Metal Festival in 2013, where the Swedes delivered a tight, professional and all in all excellent set. Totally approved. Still, it didn’t really lure me into listening to their albums, perhaps a song here and there.
When Markus from Nuclear Blast wanted to check in with us to see if anyone would do a review, I had to tell him that sadly no one from the staff had picked up the album (something I have to say a lot because we literally receive hundreds of review requests every month). When his response was something along the lines of ‘please do so – the album kills!’, I thought to myself: ‘hm, A&R people tend to say this, but when someone from Nuclear Blast takes the trouble to say it, then possibly I should take a minute or two to check out the album’.
I did and never regretted it. It’s been the album I’ve listened to most often when I’ve had the time to listen to music at work.
Strid and Andersson have written the songs of the album, and hats off to their ability to put together a varied mixture of superb songs. Whether they incorporate black metal inspired riffing, death metal, heavy rock or ABBAesque pop melodies, they make the lot work like a charm.
The album opener, which is also the title track, is a wee instrumental with a slide guitar. Beautiful stuff, which is then rather abruptly followed by a furiosly fast riff and blastbeast drumming by the newest addition to the band, drummer Sebastian Thursgaard (formerly of among others Dawn of Demise and The Arcane Order). The young Dane replaces Dirk Verbeuren in a most convincing way – his effort here is very, very impressive.
Björn Strid is a voice wonder. It is incredible how he after all these years still is capable of bridging the span from deep death growls over metalcore screams to the modern metal clean voice to a pop/rock clean voice. What did he do that e.g. Burton Bell from Fear Factory didn’t do? Whatever, his voice is magic.
One of my favourite songs is ‘Stålfågel’ (‘Steel bird’). The reason for this is not only because Strid uses so variety of facets of his voice for this song, but also because the sonf has one of the coolest grooves I’ve heard in a song in a long time.
Monster songs. Monster album. It should be on Spotify now – go listen!
]]>The new album, Will To Power, which is about to be unleashed upon the world in a couple of days, is a testament to the determination of Michael Amott to write heavy and melodic music. Some things haven’t changed, as there is still a considerable touch of Malmsteen and Michael Schenker in Arch Enemy’s music. A prime example is ‘Dreams of Retribution’, and it works perfectly within the Swedish melodic death metal sound. As always, there is plenty of variation to be found in terms of tempo and riffing.
However, there are two things that have changed in my ears. One, with a force like Jeff Loomis on board, there has got to be a thing or two going on in the department of guitars. Luckily there is! There are details in the guitar work you can listen to over and over again, and never get tired of. When Loomis joined Arch Enemy back in 2015, I was kind of surprised, but it makes so much sense now. This is a marriage made in guitar heaven.
Two, Alissa White-Gluz has really stepped up into the role of front lady of Arch Enemy. She did a fine job on ‘War Eternal’, but this time there is so much more power and versatility in play on Will To Power. Alissa does a splendid job as she grunts, whispers, screams like a demon, and sings her way through the album. When White-Gluz grunts “This is a fight I must win” in the chorus of the song that has stuck in my brain the past couple of days, ‘A Fight I Must Win’, I almost automatically say, “No worries blue hair! You won the fight!”
