Slanderous libel and hearsay about heavy metal. Throwing Goats = Putting Up Devil Horns. Get it? Your fingers are horns and by pumping your horned fist, it's like you're throwing a goat? Nevermind, it's a visual thing.
Not much to say about about this one, although I was pleasantly surprised.
This album does have an official video it's not very good, the song or the video.
First off, the art doesn't work for me. Derek Hess art says Converge, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, American Hardcore, Hellfest poster, maybe. Not Swedish metal. I definitely own this CD, but I don't know if I ever listened to it, and I blame, in part, the artwork.
The music, though, is not actually that bad. It's a little standard for the mid-aughts, so there weren't really any standout tracks for me, but it's fairly aggressive and face paced. The writing is pretty good and the guitar performances are on point. I think I would really like this record if it weren't for the vocals, and if I'd listened to it more when it was new, I'd probably have liked it then, too.
The clean vocal performances are getting better. Not my cup of tea, but Anders is doing better, I guess. They're moving away from over-dubbing and effects-drenching the vocals, and it's less whiny. His screams, however, are more whiny. There are alot dirty scream/talk and scream/yelling vocals, and A TON of breathing into the microphone. Not a 5 star vocal performance.
As I listen to this record, I don't mind it, but it occurs to me that this is about when American Metalcore bands started to be less breakdowny and more just metal. When I should have been listening to In Flames, I was listening to this:
And this:
And This:
And This:
There's just no comparing. That said, this is the best In Flames record since Colony, shocked as I am to say it. Although the title track is pretty awful, and Your Bedtime Story is Scaring Everyone is TERRIBLE, just a waste of time, I think I sort of stand behind this record.
I remember hoping that this would be better than Reroute to Remain and it is. I also remember this being in regular rotation for a little while, particularly with my Servant Girl Annihilator drummer. I feel like maybe I'm misremembering that part - like maybe we listened to it once, all the way through, which is more than any late-period In Flames record, so by comparison, that's heavy rotation.
F(r)iend is good, dumb title.
Quiet Place has bad clean vocals, and a lot of that thing they do when they go from emo singing to screaming. It's lame, so is it's title.
Dead Alone is ok. As is it's title.
Touch of Red has a trick instrumental that's lame - they tricked me into listening to this instrumental, and the title isn't great.
Alot of it runs together at this point... I suspect it's a better record than Reroute To Remain, but I don't really like it. Evil in a Closet is the worst song, with the second worst title (Superhero of the Compter Rage?! Really?). The bloopy keyboard and that GIANT CHINA CYMBAL really pervade the record, kind of in a bad way.
In Search For I, despite it's title, is pretty dope, probably the best song on the record.
In general, this album sounds like Static-X and Slayer and a pop punk band had a baby. Generally the vocal performance is better and I think the band is better at using clean vocal parts at this point. It just doesn't sound like In Flames, except in tiny, tiny bursts. Also the song titles are stupid, but it's probably the most aggressive album since Jester Race or Lunar Strain, which gets it points in my book. I guess this sort of bodes well-ish for the next several albums of this challange.
Reroute to Remain: Fourteen Songs of Conscious Madness (2002)
This was tough. Unfortunately, this was every bit as bad as I recall it being. I remember being appalled that In Flames would pawn this off on a theretofore loyal fan base. I remember trying very hard to enjoy the good riffs in spire of the bad riffs, and I remember, ultimately, shelving the record and hoping that they would recover.
Since then, I've repeatedly decided to not sell this record, because I've basically got the whole collection, and it's worth more to Completionist Josh than it is to reason, likes music Josh.
The album saw a major change in musical style and was In Flames' first considerable step in the direction of a new sound, and was met with rejection among many of their fanbase.
On the the review:
The first song, Reroute to Remain, sets a precedent for most newer In Flames songs I've listened to. Some synthy shit, just to let you know their not fuckin around trying to metal, and a killer intro riff, to let you know they might be fuckin around trying to metal. I like the opening riff and the subsequent lead, and I LOVE the quick drive from 30 seconds to 32 seconds, where it sounds like it's going to be a hardcore song. I'm on board with this song till the garbage effects washy noodly keyboard chorus. It's downhill from here.
As the record rolls on, we're treated to lots more awful clean singing and breakdowns that can't really compete with breakdowns being done by their contemporaries. This is a great example of In Flames sort of espousing the metalcore aesthetic, but not well.
In short, after Reroute to Remain:
System is awful. The metalcore parts of it are weak.
Drifter was ok, but it should have been a Haunted Song. They would have given it more edge. In fact, I'm going to wash the taste of this out my ears by listening to Exit Wounds, which came out last year and was stellar.
Trigger sort of has a lead. Who cares?
Cloud Connected is the worst song. Recycled 80's garbage. It sounds like Cars by Gary Numan.
I don't remember Transparent at all - I mostly hate it. I would like the chompy blast beat if it was a Broken Hope song. It has an ok "solo" and a neat end part.
Dawn of a New Day is garbage with a fantastically uncreative title.
Egonomic is my pick for best song on the record, I actually really enjoyed it. I think I may have never listened to the album past here, because I vaguely remember this song, but not much else from this point on. Egonomic is great, though. It's got a sweet groove part and the singy part isn't garbage.
Minus sounds like a slow Clayman hold over and it's got a couple of leads that sound like older In Flames, but overall, it's bad.
How long is this record? Too long.
Dismiss the Cynic is tolerable.
Free Fall: Nothing predisposes me to not like a song like an intro that sounds like a music box.
Dark Signs has some tolerable parts, but the singing parts make it intolerable.
Metaphor is terrible. It's a whole different, much worse band. Even by the standards of this record, it sucks.
I don't remember Black and White, literally at all, but it is not great - I assume it's about racism or acceptance or something that's probably way more faceted and complicated that Anders is able to express in 4 minutes, in broken English, no less. This was a bad experience and I'm glad it's over.
All in all - In Flames has lost all of their rock and roll edge and they're starting to sound like old guys who've lost of their metal edge, as well. All of the vocals have too many effects, especially the clean vocals, and I think that's by design. I have a theory that, as this point, the know Anders isn't a good singer and their covering it up.
I don't want to give this album the lowest score. What if another album is worse? Plus, there are parts I like, and Egonomic, in spite of the stupid title, is a pretty good song. Egonomic's singy chorus is like an anthem for In Flames at this point in their career - "Every day in every way, we are getting weaker." Too much? Definitely.
Hrm.... this was disappointing. I remember liking this more in high school. I remember my first conversation with this guy I was friends with in high school, the infamous Frank Metal.
"You know In Flames?"
"Yeah! You like In Flames?"
"How great is Colony?!"
"I'm a Jester Race guy!"
"Whoracle, though!"
"Clayman is going to be incredible! Like Whoracle is here, Colony was here, Clayman is going be to, like..."
Predictably, after putting his hand here, right around chest level, then here, right around eye level, then, like, completely extend his arm straight up, hand indicating that Clayman would be the best, the highest level of achievable In Flames, it was not all that great. I remember us listening to it together, in someone's room, on a CD player, after we all bought our own personal copies of Clayman, and I think, maybe also we all bought a copy of Highest Beauty by In Thy Dreams (way better).
You could make a movie montage.
Three kids, one long hair, budding beard, clearly emulating Bjorn Gellotte's look, and two other guys, wearing probably the Machine Head years of the Dragon tee and a polo shirt, respectively:
We listen to it, Bullet Ride, super sweet intro STAR WIPE
The clean singing part of Bullet Ride, we're confused FOGGY DREAM FADE
Pinball Map, we're nodding our heads along to that sweet two-step, cuz we're hardcore kids at heard SMASH CUT
We're arguing over whether or not Only For the Weak is any Good INTERCUT scenes the remaining couple of good parts and us looking tolerant and the many, many, many remaining clean parts and slow parts, and us looking disappointed and it finally degrades to us trying to justify the rest of the record.
My experience, now, was much the same, but with less In Flames Apologism.
I stand by Bullet Ride, Pinball Map and Swim, Another Day In Quicksand is ok, and Clayman is heavy and fast, but not good, per se. The rest is between meh and not great. Most songs have cool moments, promising riffs, good solos. The songs aren't as formulaic as they will eventually become, but Clayman largely does not hold up. Strong and Smart, on the special edition, is GREAT! I have that song, alone, on my iPod.
Why? These albums are both really important to me. They are what really pushed me passed Powerman 5000 and Mudvayne into heavier metal. I really like both of them for different reasons, but I only wanted to give one of them a 5 goat rating, for some reason. Also, this is sort of the end of fun, right here. I remember liking Bullet Ride and Strong and Smart, but for real - what more do I have to look forward to? Not shit, that's what.
But first - The Colony "official video" had to come along sometime way after, because it's after Anders god dreads. It's not terrible as shitty live videos go.
One to the Review!
I listened to Whoracle, first. Classic!
I think this is the most In Flamesy they get, or at least this is where they have the most of what I like. These tracks, even the slow ones, are very metal, very dynamic and very melodically smart. They sound like they were written by a band that loved what they were doing.
High points are the Hive and Morphing Into Primal, both of which I think I learned to play on every instrument - I can definitely play on guitar and bass, the Hive being one of the first solos I ever learned, and there was definitely a time when I could play them on drums. The first four hits of Morphing Into Primal are very satisfying, as are the two big hits before the main riff restarts. Brings back memories of when I played drums all the time.
Speaking of memories, one the last times I saw In Flames, they played the middle of Episode 666 as a breakdown - I know it's sort of a chuggy rhythm part anyway, but they made it really crucial. I remember being really disappointed, even though I was into mosh pits at the time. I remember wondering that was the beginning of In Flames selling out or changing or whatever.
Anyway - I loved Whoracle. I think it's like 30% nostalgia, 70% good music. As an observer, this isn't nearly as aggressive as I like metal now. There are limited really heavy or really fast parts, and certainly no blast beats, which are a staple in any new band I pick up nowadays, so I'll say, maybe it's not as good as I think it is, but certainly, Whoracle hits all the right spots for me.
Plus, that one part after the solo in World Within Margins - the real epic, triumphant sounding drive. Great!
On to Colony!
Listening to them back-to-back, Colon and Whoracle are very different albums. I think even if you listen to all of their albums, condensed as they are, in this challenge, you hear a sort of downward trend of heaviness and an upward trend of overt catchiness. That said, I think Colony marks the tipping point of heavy metal and pop-sensibility. I think, on Colony, they pushed it as far as they could for me.
Colony is a much more rock and roll record. More driving bad ass parts, a great balance of rock and and roll shredding and Swedish melody-making in the solos. Groovy tom-heavy drum beats abound, and the fast parts maintain alot of forward momentum without actually going that fast. I have a real deeply-ingrained love of rock and roll sensibility (i.e. The Crown's Deathrace King, Exhumed's Slaughtercult, alot Gorerotted's middle catalog) and I've never attributed to Colony, but I think it's prevalent enough that on here, that maybe it was a contributing factor (although the Deathrace King is probably much more at fault.).
Embody the Invisible gets stuck in my head often and Coerced Coexistence has been a favorite by the band for a long time - the solo is maybe my favorite by In Flames (starting the challenge, I thought there was another solo I liked more, but it turned out to be the solo in the Penetrations from the Lost World version of Through the Version Sky by Dimension Zero).
The New Word is fantastic (imagine 20 year old me, and a friend in a record store circa 2004, stopping and air guitaring the solo tap part together, which we at one point, could actually play together). Reminds me of a better time when...
Reminds me of that same time I saw In Flames that I mentioned before. They played Scorn, a great song all by itself, but for the bridge/lead in the middle, they played the opening riff to Raining Blood by Slayer. The place when nuts - people yelling "SLAYER" and suddenly pitting. It was nuts, but gave me the same "beginning of the end" vibe. I've seen In Flames once since then - the played the Hive and Only for the Weak, and added singing to both of them. I didn't recognize any other songs.
THE VERDICT:
This was tough - the marker for these album is that they don't feel dated at all to me. Old Hypocrisy, old Meshuggah, old Opeth even, sound old. Must music I loved when I was 15 sounds old. Have you listened to Mudvayne or Nothingface or Skinlab or Fear Factory recently? Nostalgia blinds you to the temporality of a thing. I don't get that with these. Both Colony and Whoracle sound current and awesome to me. I don't think they'll ever not be in rotation.
BUT
All in all, I think Whoracle takes the prize here. Colony is amazing, and it's in a class with precious few other albums that young, budding, heavy-metal-hungry Josh Dawson loved, and still loves, but Whoracle was there first, and I think it's there best.
Plus, I should have known from Ordinary Story, that they were going to turn sing songy. I think they even said in an interview that they were experimenting with that song...
First - I (Josh) LOVE official metal videos. They are always great or embarrassingly badgreat. I have two for you.
Artifacts of the Black Rain - Great song! OK video.
The Jester Race - I don't know if this is an official video or not. The quality is very very very bad, but maybe it was recorded off of TV, maybe from MTV2 when it would have been on the air, maybe by a hand held camcorder in like 1998. That's what it looks like anyway. I don't know if it's really official.
So, quick, less fancy review, because I listened to this on Friday, and it's not Sunday, and the intense emotions I had at the time have faded.
Moonsheild - fine song, overrated, on the slow side, but not bad. I liked it.
The Jester's Dance - track two is the wrong place for an instrumental that feels long. BOOOO!
What follows are a bunch of really great songs. Fast, aggressive, blazing with In Flames' signature style and a little more belly-fire than me, as a frequent Whoracle listener, might expect.
Artifacts of the Black Rain - killer!
Graveland - fucking baller! I should cover this song with Goat Thrower!
Lord Hypnos - always forget about this song. Just great!
Dead Eternity - it's been well established that I like this song, and this version is fine, too.
The Jester's Race - Sweet tune, but more on this later...
December Flower - I don't know how long it's since I listened to this song, but that solo! Holy cow! I got to the solo and had an instant and all encompassing sense-memory of the last time I listened to that solo! Like, in another life, I was obsessed with that solo. High-point of the this record is the December Flower solo!
Wayfaerer - Is it spelled that way because their Swedish? Or because of a typo, and if so, is there a version of the album where it's corrected? Or because, spelled that way, it means something different, or utilizes some archaic, cooler spelling. Is "ae," in this case, a diphthong? This is a better place for an instrumental. This is twice the length of the Jester's Dance, but it felt shorter. Weird right?
Dead God In Me - I know I said that Inborn Lifeless was better, but I don't know, now. I was amped for this and it really hit me in the just the right way. I may be a convert to this version, although the crying-baby break in the middle is lame. It really (I know I say this alot) kills the momentum. Funny story - I had computer, when I was in college, and "System Error" sound was the "CHUG CHUG AHHHHHH!" sound.
My version has bonus tracks - the studio tracks of Black Ash Inheritance. Gyroscope is fine - not my favorite Whoracle track, and for some reason, I feel like it's a little played out.
I love the acoustic medley. I learned to play it years ago. Maybe it's my favor instrumental track ever.
Goliath's Disarm Their Davids... great song. it's very much In Flames being In Flames, right? Urban Dictionary actually references it was maybe In Flames' best song, and to me, it's a clear precursor of their magnum opus, Colony.
But...
For years - like YEARS. Like probably a decade or more - up until Friday afternoon - I was convinced that Goliaths Disarm Their Davids was a re-recording of Jester Race. I can't explain it. I really thought that the "And we go... and we go" part from Jester happened in Goliaths, as well. I had convinced myself that the intros were the same, but one had effects. In my mind, the main riffs were basically recycled.
It's not. Goliaths Disarm Their Davids is great, and clearly, I see now that I'm a crazy person.
But I have clear memories of thinking, condescendingly, "Jeez - the just re-record and retitle a title track! Who does that?!" and later, when I bought the album, I BOUGHT THE PHYSICAL ALBUM and still thought "who are these asshats, putting both versions on the song on the same release" So strong was this, false (maybe implanted? Reptilians, I'm looking at you) memory, that in my car, on Friday, I listened the two songs back to back, and had this smug thought like, "ha! I'm gonna call them out on this shit! Listen two these two songs, clearly the same thing!" Meaning that the like 30% of my attention I was paying to sitting in rush hour traffic was enough to blind me to the truth.
Needless to say, I got home, actually listened to the two tracks, had a minor crisis of faith and tumbled, ass-over-tea-kettle, into a gaping psychic schism, as a decade of presumption crumbled into the sea, ultimately leaving me with a vacant queasy feeling akin, to having just been told you were adopted.
It was that bad.
4 out of 5 goats. I recommended this album. And Goliaths Disarm There Davids, which I now recognize as a great song.
Josh again - According to the rules of the In Flames Challenge, I don't know if I have to listen to In Flames continuously or not, but I copped the new Meshuggah release, Violent Sleep of Reason, and I've been spinning that.
Before you ask, yes, this is just like every Meshuggah release. If you like Meshuggah, you'll like it. Most parts sound like if Nothing really had it's shit together. The ones that don't most sound melty. Not face-melting; they sound like melting. When you watch a time lapse video of a glacier or a wax figure or something melting, and sometimes it's flowing and sometimes it loses big chunks, that's that's Violent Sleep of Reason. Monstrosity is my favorite song. By The Ton is also great. Give it a listen. I'm super pumped to see them in November.
Besides listening to music, I like to try to stay busy, musically speaking - playing, recording, mixing, now blogging I guess. Right now, either because of allergies or an ear infection, I'm hard of hearing in one ear, and it's putting a damper on things. Mostly, I'm working on mixing the latest Servant Girl Annihilator release, Enemies of God, which is very difficult to do listening in mono.
So the other thing I need get done is writing lyrics. ALOT of lyrics:
Servant Girl Annihilator has 6, only a couple of which are even started,
Bituminous Pit has all the material set for out next release - Straight and Godless Line, which has 5 songs that need lyrics and another grouping, which I think will be called Cauldron, almost all of which needs lyrics. All in all, I've got like 20 songs that need lyrics that I have to write.
Here's the rub, I'm not really a lyricist - or at least I don't think so.
In Doomsday, writing both music and lyrics was a chore. Lyrics, especially, were always sort of gauntlet. Brian was the singer, so really our standard should have been that it sound cool, and that Brian is willing to say it out loud, right? Instead, and with precious few exceptions, we took it way too seriously, which made it a pain in the ass. Each song had to be the coolest sounding, most ideologically dense, narratively exciting manifesto of philosophical downfall and existential terror ever, each grimmer and more incisive than the last.
As if that wasn't a high enough bar, most of the songs were written as part of this never-to-be-finished concept album, at times titled Regimes, at times Technology Will Ruin Us, so the songs had to be sort of narrative and plausibly be part of that universe. It wasn't until right before we stopped playing that we relaxed a little, and just enjoyed the creative exercise.
At least we were writing as a group, and I think that's where I shine - as a contributor.
Since Doosmday, though, I've been involved primarily in small projects, me and one or two other people, and usually I'm doing vocals and by default, writing lyrics. I've never thought of myself as a lyrics. I never write for fun. I don't read other band's lyrics, I don't like poetry. Writing lyrics is a pain the ass for me, most of the time
So what's a guy to do? I don't really have an great end to this post. I just sat down to write lyrics the other day, because mixing was not going well, and was immediately stumped. It seemed like something to work on,
So I guess I'll to crystallize my creative process, and see if I can't crank out some lyrics.
A Starting Point: I think I like to start with a cool title (Cauldron, Metamorphose to the Grim, Court of Castrates) or a concept that strike me - usually that's either really weird or that I can be angry about (conspiracy theory that Michael Jackson bought the bones of Joseph Merrick, the elephant man, the media are shitty liars, good old nihilism)
Some Seed words: I think lyrics I really like come from a combination of the above and some cool words or turns of phrase that I have think of or encounter. I need something cool to get me started.
Metamorphose to the Grim was just a dumb phrase on a scrap of paper, and I had I was playing around with the phrase/idea of transubstantiation (religious context, the communion wafer is literally Christ's body). In the context of horror movies, I wound up with a sweet Goat Thrower song about werewolves - "Like a lupine bolt from out the darkness split my soul in twine, down a transubstantial concourse I embark." I ended up being really proud of those lyrics.
Phrasing is apparently really important in my process: I've tried just writing lyrics and fitting them to the song. Brian was really good at that. I'm not. I think my best work comes from wanting to accomplish a particular thing - a GO! just at the right time, a certain phrase doubled up or syncopated or alternated or distorted or yelled over a pause. That's a little like lightning for me - I never know when it's going to strike. I could probably benefit from starting with a song and finding some dynamic lyrical thing as a jumping off point. Metamorphose had that too. I actually re-wrote the intro riff to the song to accommodate that one idea.
Commentary on a thing isn't always good: I used to like to try to write songs that commented on stuff, but that only works for me when I give a shit to begin with. Like I tried for a long time to write a song about Margaret Sanger, who before she founded Planned Parenthood, was a proponent of eugenics. She published a paper, called Harvest of Imbecility that I read in college. If memory serves, it's about sterilizing mentally and physically handicapped people. I couldn't get invested in it and floundered on it for months. Eventually I re-wrote the song about how mass produced white bread was the answer to pre-industrial-revolution local bakers stretching flour supplies with talc and sawdust which is gross and deadly but also kept them from cooking thorough, allowing bread to carry cholera and typhus.
I can't go personal: Turns out I'm not the type to emote in my music. Everyone once in awhile I try to write something about life events - someone's sick, someone died, something happened to someone, someone got born, whatever, it never works for me. I don't really connect to other people's emotional lyrics either. It follows a pattern:
I write personal lyrics
I hate them
I rewrite them, trying to speak only in metaphors - for some reason I default to space metaphors - astral bodies, dark matter, black holes, entropy and the inevitability of universal heat death.
I commit that now almost meaningless nonsense.
Whatever I was feeling passes or I get over it or whatever
I have to rewrite this song that is now a pile of cosmic word-salad that I have literally no level of connection to.
Structure is important to me, but I get hung up on it: I don't like poetry. Maybe I just don't get it, but I don't I like it. It's hard to articulate why, but I think that the structural aspect of prose is sort of subverted so that the content can be effective. In poetry, i think I see it as the opposite happening, or maybe it's more 50/50. Like expression within the confines of a restrictive form is the art? I can get behind that without really buy into it. Free verse poetry is completely over my head. I don't enjoy it or understand it. Filthly beatniks can keep it.
I like rap the same way. I don't really like like mumbley rappers or rappers who rap around the beat, or pile words on and get these epic complicated rhymes, but aren't tight. At the same time, I need the production to be stay lively, preferably sample heavy, but I like the songs to be about the vocals. Grayskul is a great example of both. big rap collective consisting of guys who are real tight rappers, and guys who fly a little looser, and also alot of sample heavy down-beat parts right up against some kooky P-funk experimental synth shit. I love/hate Grayskul.
Anyway, thank said, I see lyrics the same way, except I only rarely get the desired effect out of my own lyrics with just the words, so the form is important too - i like it to rhyme and complete ideas in time and hit all the accents right, but alot of times I get caught in a corner with trying to make the form serve the function. I have a lot of respect for some guys I've worked with who can just write free verse lyrics. Brian was awesome at that, as was John, my Bit Pit co-conspirator and Kyle my SGA drummer. Great job, guys.
Pacing: I have a tendency to really put lyrics off. I can write some shit down and yell it at the drop of a hat, but I don't like those lyrics, usually. Servant Girl Annihilator is mostly written on the spot, but those are just gore metal lyrics. As long as it's not misogynist, I don't really care. But bands where I'm going to play live, going to promote, going to be the face of the band and yell those things in peoples faces - I need to care about those lyrics and sit with them and make them good the first time - the need to sound bad ass and feel good.
Underlying nihilist anti-establishment outlook: I developed a good sense for this in Doomsday. I don't know if it will work for everyone, but I like my lyrics to have a little bit of devil-may-care and a little bit of fuck-the-system mentality. Without it, they don't feel appropriately heavy metal.
Taking these eight, only very recently formalized, bullet points, I'm to try to write some lyrics this weekend. And to thank you for your patience, below is that Goat Thrower song I kept referencing.
I actually own a couple of versions of this - the 2004 remaster with all the bonus tracks and combo Lunar Strain/Subterranean album. I listened to the remaster because the master sounds better and it's got a bunch of what I assumed were super sweet bonus tracks.
They were ok bonus tracks.
On to the review:
On Lunar Strain, we were introduced to an In Flames lead by an impressive vocal performance by Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity, a personal best for him, in my opinion. I knew that we didn't yet have long time and current vocalist Anders Friden here, but I had always assumed it still Stanne. They Shyamalaned me, though; it's neither!
The lion's share of the vocals, that is to say, lead vocals on all five canon E.P. tracks are performed by Henke Forss, of Dawn, doing his best grim-ass Mikael Stanne. The bonus tracks each feature their own singer, Anders Friden being the only one I recognize. Also Daniel Erlandsson (of Arch Enemy and Brujeria) did session drum performances on a bunch of tracks. It was a party
Music-wise, I like the core E.P. tracks alot. Subterranean and Biosphere have been long time favorites of mine. I forgot how great Stand Ablaze is. I think it's my pick for this album, because it really showcases In Flames changing into the In Flames that I know and love - it's holding onto alot of the aggression and the black metal aesthetic of Lunar Strain, but it really embraces the melodic dynamism they'd later be known for. Very cool, very good, not as exciting as Lunar Strain, but still very good.
On to the bonus tracks...
The pre-Jester Race Dead Eternity and Inborn Lifeless (Dead God in Me) are superior to the re-recorded versions. These have more edge, they attack a little bit more, and I really like them with the grim and frostbitten vocals. On a personal note, I had always assumed that these were part of the original Subterranean release. They're not. I'm not actually sure what they released on, but that diminishes how cool I though Subterranean was. Bummer, I guess.
The covers didn't add anything for me. I like a cover of a classic metal song, but no one does Iron Maiden songs any justice in covers, except Cradle of Filth*. Murders in the Rue Morgue was good pick, because it's not the most Maideny Maiden song, and I'm a closet Paul Di'anno fan (Killers 4 Life!) but it's not great. Eye of the Beholder is complete garbage. Take a boring Metallica song, do a completely loyal cover with no gusto or panache from your own band - put no spin or signature on it - then have have some rando do mediocre Metallica type classic metal vocals. Great plan. Pysche. That's a terrible plan. You should be ashamed of yourself, In Flames. You wasted like 5 minutes of time and your version was so boring, I almost fell asleep while driving (true story). I could have killed us all, and the blood would be on your hands.
Overall, this was an OK listen. I'd give it like 3 out of 5 goats, like 400ish out 666 skulls. Nifty graphic is forthcoming, then I'll retcon it back into all these old posts and remove all the naval-gazing about needing a graphical rating system. That'll show you! Up next - Jester Race!
Josh here. (I type that because, in theory, John or Ben[also doing the In Flames Challenge {just Ben, not John, but sweet nested parenthetical}] could post also post at any time, and if Ben is like "When I heard Come Clarity, there arose within my cold, blackened and desolated heart, an harmonious awakening of beauteous sadness" I don't want you to think that's me. I would never say that, and I hate when you speak American English and needless put "an" before a pronounced "h".)
Lunar Strain (1994) \
Good first Challenge entry. Really set a good tone. What a great first record for a band to have, sort of.
I had high hopes for this one, which were sort of not met. Disappointment was mitigated, however, because the good songs on here are SO SO good.
Upon and Oaken Throne is, to this day, one of my favorite In Flames songs.
Starforsaken and Lunar Strain are bonkers good!
Behind Space kicks the hell out of it's latter-day re-recorded version, and Clad in Shadows almost does, too, but it's super short, and that solo is tough to enjoy having heard the re-imaging.
All in all, the songs I like on here, I REALLY love. My problem started at track four. Dreamscape pulled me in a compelling riff from a song I hadn't heard in awhile, but by 1:30 I had determined that there were no vocals and that this was basically a waste of my time. Dreamscape kicks off 13 MINUTES OF BORING, NOT-AT-ALL-SICK-BLACK-METAL-INSPIRED-GOTHENBURG-METAL. WHAT?! Why? talk about a momentum killer! Plus I figured out Hargallatan on acoustic guitar when I was like 13 and whenever I heard that or the intro to Starforsaken, it's stuck in my head all day. Turns out I haven't listened to those four filler tracks (IN A ROW!) - Dreamscape, Everlost Part 1, Everlost Part 2 and Hargallatan, since I got the album in high school, and will probably not ever listen to them again.
It gets a 3.5 out of 5 goats thrown just for having Upon an Oaken Throne. I should get a nifty Goats Thrown graphic for this, and future music reviews. Or maybe something eviler, cuz it's metal. 3.5 Pentagram point? 7 out of 10 virgins sacrificed? 466.2 out of 666 skulls? Still, solid record with some great songs. Loved, not every minute, but like 75% of the minutes of it.
Josh here. First real post - start the In Flames Challenge.
The Challenge:
In case you're not in the know, the Napalm Death Challenge is a thing where, if you're a grindcore or death metal guy, you probably talk about loving Napalm Death, even though Napalm Death isn't consistently that good (GASP!?). Blasphemy, right? No - alot of Napalm Death is thin crusty early-days-of-metal recording or Nu-Metal with Barney Greenway on vocals.
In the Challenge, you listen to every Napalm Death release, taking the good with the bad. Sometimes it's great, some times You Suffer. The point of the Napalm Death Challenge is that it's hard, because Napalm Death is maybe at least as bad as they are good? They invented grindcore, yeah, but it's that thing in business, where someone invents a thing, but then someone gets famous for doing it better: Hydrox vs Oreo, Myspace vs Facebook, Napalm Death vs every Swedish grind band.
Likewise, In Flames is not all epic harmonies and Depeche Mode covers, and I (and Ben) will listen to every In Flames full length records, plus Subterranean and Black Ash Inheritance, which are great and which I own, and see what's good and what's bad.
My Thesis:
In Flames helped invent Gothenburg metal. They're super important and influential and all that. Around Clayman, though, I fell of the In Flames bandwagon. For me, Whoracle and Colony were, and still are, standbys, and responsible for alot of how I play guitar and write music. The albums before that were and are great, Clayman was and is neutral, Reroute to Remain and on is increasing bad. Have an album called "Sounds of Playground Fading" which sounds like the title of shoegaze Korn kover album.
Around Reroute to Remain, In Flames, either consciously or by coincidence, shifted toward metalcore, which was very popular at the time. They never had huge crucial breakdowns, but they turned almost exclusively to third- and fifthi harmonized Slayer style thrash parts, chug-a-dug verses and clean singing in every song. At the time, there were a thousand bands that did that better, so for me they went from the top of the Gothenburg pile to the middle of the metalcore heap, and so ended my love affair. Unearth, God Forbid and Killswitch Engage were all doing In Flames better than In Flames, and none of them had that sweet Gothenburg nectar.
I always listen to their new songs - sweet opening riff, chug-a-dug verse, evacuate all momentum as the clean chorus swoops in and slows things down. I buy their new albums when I see them used, but the magic is gone.
or WAS gone, maybe. Am I wrong? Is it all a weird confirmation bias? Is In Flames really way better than I'm giving them credit for? Is my one friend, Vin, right, when he says they catch an unfair amount of flak for their later work? On the whole, is their catalog actually not that bad?
I don't think so - I think as soon as I hear Anders' shitty (And it is shitty. Normally I try to articulate it like "I just don't like that, but who can say", but he is not a good singer) clean vocals, I'm going regret this whole thing. But we'll see. I have a couple of albums before I get there. I'll try to stay objective and we'll see how it goes.
First post! Set the tone! Get things moving! This blog was set up a couple of times.
First, I was going to make a music sharing site. NOPE! I just never took the time to set up a mediafire or mega or 4shared account or anything.
Second, it was just a blog about recording projects I worked on or performed in. I posted like 4 times about a project I recorded on my own called Somnambulant - instrument sludge recorded with a drum machine. Not great or exciting. That didn't last
Third, it sat fallow for years, doing nothing. Then two fellow musicians, the drummer from I record with in Goat Thrower and the drummer nee guitarist from Bituminous Pit nee Doomsday Machine Schematic, approached me about doing a blog where we can write about music. Several months later, after erasing boring posts about Somnambulant, we have no posts. Shocker.
So two things happened:
I found a leak of the new Anciients album, Voice of the Void, of which I have physical media preordered, and so was able to pirate it, guilt-free, driven only because I love their band and I couldn't wait to listen. These guys are riffs lords of the highest order, riffmaster generals, riffmanders in cheif, horseman of the riffpocalypse. Am I going to provide a link so you can pirate it? Nope. Go support a band I like. Or pirate it yourself - it's out there.
The second thing that happened was that I accept the In Flames Challenge. Like the Napalm Death Challenge, I'll listen to every In Flames album. So will Ben, who challenged me, I think as a joke, and now he's stuck doing it too. This seems like a better place to write about that than Facebook.
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