bit bland and anders's vocals are still rubbish but not too bad

I thought the first two singles were great, but this blows them away. My favorite song by these guys in a very long time.

Singles have been surprisingly good for their standards but still nothing special really

My guess is that it will be a 2.5/3 record

I think he means 2.5/5 or a 3/5 lmao

honestly this was a decent track, at the very least In Flames seem to be back on the right track

This is legit good, credit where credit is due

For me, this is better than 95% of modern melodeath and on par with stuff from clayman/CC. Did not expect them to put out anything that sounded like this. Wonder if the new drummer has pushed them in a more metal direction. Dude's a beast

That little acoustic part after the first chorus is just pointless, why not let it go on for a while?

Yeah, it could have gone on longer. I think the intent was to lead you into believing there would be an extended acoustic passage, only to pull the rug out. It might be some stylistic foreshadowing for Foregone Pt. 2.

Yeah it should've gone longer because it actually sounded cool. Should've done it for at least another 2 bars. Maybe add a little lead over the top of it

the jokes write themselves

mcdonalds metal

bad production + super unmemorable chorus + pointless acoustic passage + furious blastbeats only in the intro and outro and not actually incorporated into the rest of the song = OmG tHis Is ThEiR bEsT sOnG iN A WhILe ItS sO hEaVy

Waaaaahhh

although with 3 singles out so far none of them are the worst song ever written which is already a huge improvement over their last 2 albums' singles w "this is our house" and "the truth"

alamo you raise a fair point

People buttmad that in flames aren't writing 15 minute prog masterpieces and circumventing conventional song structure norms lmao

that's the opposite of what i mean i want a song structure that makes sense not a random furious intro and then slowing down in the actual song only to speed up again on the outro it's called pacing

nah that's prog

omg album art kinda rules??????????????????

Felt like a pretty typical gothenburg song to me. Lots of metal songs speed up and slow down many times throughout the song. To each their own, but the pacing didn't bother me

But also, my original comment was necessarily directed at you. I've seen multiple people complain that the songwriting is too predictable. But like... see we really expecting in flames to do weird song structures? They've always been a conventional verse chorus bridge breakdown etc band

I enjoyed this, but there's definitely truth to alamo's comment (basically, I just want more blast beats...). Always kind of a bummer when the intro is the best part of a song.

I've avoided listening to anything since ASOP. Will be checking this one out.

At the very least, these singles give me some hope that the deep cuts are gonna have a more metal edge (and maybe more blastbeats). Hopefully they don't pull the rug out from under us and the rest of the album sounds like this is our house

This has the potential to be a 3.5 album imo, singles have ranged from decent to solid, nothing monumental but fairly enjoyable

This is Come Clarity tier. Not their best work, but it's the best we can reasonably expect from them at this point.

you know these guys probably had half an album like the last few ready and then heard The Halo Effect and were like fuck, now we gotta do this all over again.

I wonder how much Chris Broderick has to do with this too

From what I understand, he didn't do any writing, but did contribute some solos (and, I assume, his fair share of non-solo guitar parts).

Monster jam.

as someone who's been a lot nicer to In Flames than most...

this slaps. 4/5

In Flames is one of my top 5-10 favorite bands since I can confidently say I love several of their albums, but I just don't think I can bring myself to care about any of their new stuff. After so many shitty, generic efforts, them coming back to average just doesn't make me feel anything. I feel like I've moved onto bigger and better things, but I'll always bump the pre-Playground stuff.

In Flames is one of my top 5-10 favorite bands since I can confidently say I love several of their albums, but I just don't think I can bring myself to care about any of their new stuff. After so many shitty, generic efforts, them coming back to average just doesn't make me feel anything. I feel like I've moved onto bigger and better things, but I'll always bump the pre-Playground stuff.

Lol gotta love that Sput is so jank that I got multiple error messages posting a single comment and then it posted twice anyway. Incredible.

I only listen to the first two singles before an album comes out but based on the two that I have listened to, the album sounds like it will be their best since Come Clarity by a mile. Also, the album art is awesome.

"as someone who's been a lot nicer to In Flames than most..."

you're a lot nicer to most things than most tbh

Not bad for modern In Flames

backhanded compliment

that bending in the main riff is odd and I don't like it, this is easily the weakest of the three tracks so far but I'm at least glad they've all been actual melodeath.

god this would be so good with some jesper leads on top

Some vocals are a bit generic but those guitar riffs are monsterous
In Flames are BACK
idgaf what haters think lmao

dear god

huh. almost legit

'mcdonalds metal'

pika thats all the mccore u enjoy

thats why i call it mccore

OMEGALUL

Album art's actually pretty good. Still not a fan of the modern logo they've been using ever since A Sense of Purpose though.

"you're a lot nicer to most things than most tbh"
idk i dont like being mean and often stuff that people say is awful is just...fine?

cool art but it's goofy how they went from the previous album "see that kid? it's you, hell yeah" to this new "we're death metal actually" art vibe

yo this album art fucking slaps

nooooo I wanted another Breaking Benjamin album from them

the modern logo reflects the quality of the band rather well imo

the song is nothing to get excited over, kinda like the other ones, it's not offensively bad though

production is awful and makes me genuinely start to wonder what the fuck happened with production in metal for a while now. how are these producers getting jobs and do bands / fans actually like this type of bland, watered-down and muddied sounding drums and the overall compression

I guess when the bar really is that low a few decent songs make people go nuts. Loving those "old In Flames is back!" comments. Are they? #Insipid2022

storm you shouldn't judge the finer aspects of production by a youtube music video.

I'm not Flug, I'm judging it by the spotify version, which isn't vinyl but I'm not gonna pretend like I own vinyl or a record player

alright fair enuf

I really do hate modern metal production but it is what it is apparently

Sounds of a Playground Fading is 11 years old already?!
A Sense of Purpose, in 2008, was the last time I didn't hate an In Flames song....until now. Not terrible, which is saying a lot given the last long string of super-generic and neutered releases from them.

Foregone conclusion that this is gonna suck ass

lol

These tracks are actually some of the best they’ve done in the last ten years, might actually enjoy this album. The album art is sick too.

That said, the fact that there have been 3 singles when the album is almost 5 months away is fucking insane. Why announce an album almost half a year in advance?

For all you young ones out there, having an acoustic portion in one of their songs is nothing new. They did it for example on their true classic of an album Whoracle. This new stuff is decent In Flames but not classic in my opinion. Still great to seem them do some things that harken but to their classic albums.

it's not the inclusion of acoustic so much as the brevity that makes it kinda pointless in the first place.

People are so nitpicky and nerdy about in flames lmao... It sounds fine

"Why announce an album almost half a year in advance?"

The shortage in vinyl might had something to do with it

This slapped! Haven't liked an In Flames song that much in years. I really think this record might be good!

"For all you young ones out there"

stopped reading right there

"People are so nitpicky and nerdy about in flames lmao"

you can only laugh about it forreal though

In Flames must have made all the money they ever needed, cos it seems they're back to playing real music. Good stuff, hope the rest of the album is up to par

They should get rid of that teen emo font though

people are nitpicky about in flames because they've been ubercrap for 20 years now, and they are an easy target to shit on

I wonder if dialogue in b flat minor is a throwback to the dialogue with the stars

In Flames’ general aesthetic since A Sense of Purpose has actually been pretty cool to me, it might seem a little Hot Topic-esque but there’s a lot of cool surreal art to be found in it. The biggest exceptions are the covers for Battles and I, the Mask but Forgone has a rad cover

We'll see, guess with good music they can make even that look cool. Kinda like Into Eternity makes the dumbest lyrics sound powerful and anthemic just because how good the vocal melodies are haha

"A Dialogue in b Flat Minor"

lmao Drop B flat is literally just the guitar tuning they use

I think their artwork since CC is pretty much shamefully bad unless you're a teen

@space jester the long lead in time is to ensure enough time for vinyl production apparently.

Pretty shocked at how much I liked this. Album art is sick too.

Still gonna temper expectations though.

Considering what in flames has been over the past what, 2 decades,this is amazing!

bet if this gets well received sooner or later the old dm logo will suddenly pop up on a cover art

Sounds like the guys are going for energy and intensity with these new tracks. Definitely dig this more than anything I've heard since a sense of purpose.
I didn't have any issue with the brief acoustic part, maybe it will be expanded upon in part 2.
I might be a little past an In Flames record really exciting me petsonally anymore but for the old school fans that have stuck around this sounds like it might kick a bit of ass.

I once got totally grilled for writing a R2R review saying it was "the first sharp plummet in the band's descent into gayness", humongous irony right there considering where they went after that album, but right now at least they seem to be coming back to a legit mdm sound

r2r was the band's descent into shitdom

absolutely hehe

guess they realised even their kid fans grew up and realised how shitty the band was

i wonder if this will amount to anything substantial in the end, I don't think you can come back from the hole they dug themselves

don't think I'll care much either way, but good on them if they manage

They haven't really dug themselves a hole monetarily speaking though. If anything, they're more successful than ever and filling out small to mid size arenas

'This is Come Clarity tier. Not their best work, but it's the best we can reasonably expect from them at this point.'

[2]

So far I have been pleasantly surprised. If the rest of the album is similar it might be a solid 3.5

I'm still cautious about this

it feels like every album, they release a decent song, everyone exclaims "In Flames are back!" and then the album becomes shit

"you know these guys probably had half an album like the last few ready and then heard The Halo Effect and were like fuck, now we gotta do this all over again."

That might be kinda true lmao

They'd have to have re-recorded and re-mastered the album in a very quick span of time for that to be true, tbf.

Those guys in that scene are all friends. I'm sure they already knew what halo effect were working on long before we ever heard it

I'm leaning towards the explanation that they're so well-set financially that they feel they no longer need to make music tailored for being easy to sell anymore. Soilwork probably had a similar realization after STAGD, god that album was shit by their standards

All three songs are still seriously enjoyable imo