In Flames I have only come to really know in the past year and only recently completed collection of their albums. The Swedish band caught my ear with A Sense Of Purpose which I thought was great…until I heard the rest of their albums.

Lunar Strain: A tough album to pick one song from because there is a lot of Diversity here. Everlost Part 2 with Jennica Johansson doing guest vocals, which are beautiful, is a great song as is Harglaten, with that eastern European feel to it. I’m not a big Dark Tranquility fan so the vocals on Lunar Strain fall short for me. With that said, I have to pick Dreamscape.

The Jester Race: Perhaps the album with the most melody, Jester race has a lot of clean guitars on it that compliment the distorted riffs and rhythm. My pick from The Jester Race is Artifacts Of Black Rain. I love the progression of this song.

Whoracle: It seems that Whoracle has a bit less melody in it and goes for a heavy, faster approach than the first two albums. I can’t say that I really like this album and perhaps it’s because of the lack of melody that I liked so much in Jester Race. If they continued that on every album it would eventually become a bit stale I suppose. My favorite from Whoracle is Gyroscope.

Colony: Although this is perhaps my favorite In Flames album, picking from colony was actually easy even though there are a lot of quality songs on the album. I would love to say that Pallar Anders Visa is my favorite, but the title track, Colony, is easily my favorite song.

Clayman: Clayman has a lot of that whispering/moaning talking on it that kind of grows a little old, but it’s still a heavy album, but I wouldn’t call it their best. The song the grabs me the most is Swim. It easily seems like the heaviest song on the album and the vocals sound great on it.

Reroute To Remain: I have to agree with most people when they say this was the start of a change in In Flames. You can clearly hear the more friendly, mainstream sound in the music right from the title track. Whenever I listen to each album in order, Reroute always throws me off a bit. Honestly, if I could avoid this album in this mix I would. Since I’m including a song from every full length, I have to pick Egonomic only because it’s the heaviest song all the way through and doesn’t have the metalcorish breakdowns and Kornish singing anywhere in it.

Soundtrack To Your Escape: Soundtrack also seems to stick to that mainstream sound. In fact it seems like there is a lot of riff recycling going on on a lot of these In Flames albums. The more I listen, the more I hear it. The stand out track on this album to me is F(r)iend. It just follows the earlier In Flames format of heavier songs, whereas every other song on the album seems to follow the format started on Reroute.

Come Clarity: Come Clarity is a better album than Soundtrack and Reroute. Though it still has a lot of the mainstream feel to it and not so much of that early Gothenberg sound. I’m not authority on the Gothenberg metal by any means, so don’t get me wrong. Come Clarity just has a certain catchy-ness to it that’s hard to ignore. Simply put, Versus Terminus is my favorite on this album.

A Sense Of Purpose: I praised this album when I first heard it, but I find it very forgettable at times. Sure I can remember Alias and The Mirror’s Truth because they are singles and have videos but the track that still sticks in my mind is Disconnected. The solo in Sleepless Again reminds me of a power ballad solo from the early 90’s. Perhaps I don’t give this album enough listening time.

So there you have it. 9 albums and 9 songs.

1. Lunar Strain: Dreamscape
2. Jester Race: Artifacts Of Black Rain
3. Whoracle: Gyroscope
4. Colony: Colony
5. Clayman: Swim
6. Reroute To Remain: Egonomic
7. Soundtrack To Your Escape: F(r)iend
8. Come Clarity: Versus Terminus
9. A Sense Of Purpose: Disconnected

If I were to put together a play-list it would be much more than 9 songs. Your turn, 1 song from each album. If you don’t have an album pick an extra song from an album you do have, but do not exceed 9 songs.

Next Up: Opeth. This one is going to be extremely difficult for me.

(Images: Amazon.com

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Jesper will be replaced by long time friend of In Flames, Niclas Engelin while they tour South America, Australia and Japan.

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In Flames

Anyway, if you look at their songs, they don’t sing about the things that 99% of the death metal genre is singing about and the music and vocals don’t really fit my concept of Death Metal even though some songs may have a close resemblance. When I think of Death Metal I think of bands like Suffocation, Death, Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. Perhaps the perception of Death Metal in Europe is different than what it is in the U.S., I don’t know.

On another note, if I had heard the other albums like Come Clarity, Reroute To Remain and Colony, I probably would have had a different outlook on A Sense Of Purpose. I still think it’s a great album, but now I understand why more seasoned In Flames fans didn’t receive it as well as I did. I’m especially diggin Clayman and Soundtrack To Your Escape but Colony is by far my favorite. Specifically Coerced Coexistence.

Is it me or is Anders Friden looking a little 1990’s Johnathan Davis-ish in this photo.

Image: Newscom

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Mikael Akerfeldt

When I bought the new In Flames early last year I was pretty happy with it. It was great to me but it didn’t have me looking for more In Flames. When I got Opeth’s Watershed it was a lot different than what I expected. It was enough to get me curious and want to hear more Opeth and now I have every Opeth Album and listened to Damnation, of all records during my morning workout. When I heard that In Flames won it, my first thought was that Swedish Grammy’s aren’t much different than American Grammy’s. The person you want and expect to win never does.

Opeth front-man Mikael Akerfeldt wasn’t sore about the loss. It’s tough to be upset about someone else winning something when that person or band is/are your friends(s). Here’s just a slice of what Akerfeldt had to say on the subject.

“We didn’t win the Grammy award this year either and I admit I got a little disappointed although it doesn’t really mean anything. Since I’m there at the show I wanna fucking win! But IN FLAMES got it. They’re mates of ours so I’m happy for them.”

He goes on to say that the Grammy’s were the same as usual. Boring and stuck up people with little career outside of Sweden.

Source: Blabbermouth

Image: Newscom

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All That Remains

Hey Everyone,

We are so bummed we had to cancel. We cant wait to reschedule these shows and we promise to make it up to you. We’ll try to come up with a cool way to make it up to all of you who went out expecting to see us play and couldn’t. For everyone who bought a ticket to the In Flames shows that we were unable to perform at bring your ticket stub to the next ATR concert in your city and we will give you a free tour shirt while supplies last.

 

Thanks,
All That Remains

That’s cool and everything but most of the people that wanted to see them won’t be able to see them again for awhile, until at least after April and there’s no guarantee that they will be booked at the same place or close for that matter. Maybe, kind of , sorta if you don’t lose your ticket stub and while supplies last you might get a T-shirt. Good effort, but I think a mail-in offer would be a much better way to go. Set it up ATR & Prosthetic!

Even if you didn’t get to see ATR though, you still got to or get to In Flames and Gojira…and 36 Crazyfists I guess. That’s a pretty cool show if you ask me.

Image © MetalMartyr.com 2008

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Metal Martyr Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2008

1. Kataklysm: Prevail –
2. Gojira: The Way Of All Flesh
3. Opeth: Watershed
4. Firewind: The Premonition
5. In Flames: A Sense Of Purpose
6. Arsis: We Are The Nightmare
7. Soulfly: Conquer
8. Testament: The Formation Of Damnation
9. Amon Amarth: Twilight Of The Thunder God
10. Bloodbath: The Masterless Fathomry

Metal Martyr Biggest Disappointment

• Slipknot: All Hope Is Gone (Just not as good as I thought it would be)

Biggest Surprise Of 2008

• Metallica: Death Magnetic

(While it has it’s flaws, this turned out a lot better than I anticipated and is a thousand time more listenable than St. Anger)

Acquired Tastes (albums that took more than two listens to really get in to)

• Withered: Folie Circuluire
• The Funeral Pyre: Wounds
• Neuraxis: The Thin Line Between

Here is a list of other album that I thought were great and deserve a big mention in no particular order. I suppose I could have made it a favorite top 20 if I wanted to.

• Unearth: The March
• Cavalera Conspiracy: Inflikted
• All That Remains: Overcome
• Children Of Bodom: Blooddrunk
• Torche: Meanderthal
• Trivium: Shogun
• War Of Ages: Arise & Conquer
• The Sword: Gods Of The Earth
• Byzantine: Oblivion Beckons
• Light This City: Stormchaser

Most Hated of 2008

• Century: Black Ocean

Image Source: Amazon.com

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All That Remains posted a bulletin yesterday on their Myspace announcing that they will have to cancel two of shows on their tour with In Flames, Gojira and 36 Crazyfists. One of those shows was last nights show in Tempe Arizona and the other date is tonight’s show in Albuquerque New Mexico. This is what was posted on myspace:

Hey guys, we unfortunately had to cancel off the Tempe and Albuquerque shows. Phil’s vocals are in rough shape to a point where singing will not be possible. Luckily the doctors say he’ll be better shortly and we’ll be back in gear for Denver. See you soon.

- All That Remains

Image ©MetalMartyr.com 2008

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• The Human Abstract – Procession Of The Fates
• Hatebreed – Destroy Everything (Live)
• Architects – Always
• The Sword – Fire lances Of The Great Hyperzephyrians
• Pantera – 5 Minutes Alone
• In Flames – Alias
• Children Of Bodom – Smile Pretty For The Devil
• Five Finger Death Punch – Way Of The Fist
• Gojira – To Sirius
• All That Remains – Chiron

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The video was recorded just outside Gothenburg, directed and produced by Patric Ullaeus (Revolver Film Company) who has worked with the band several times before and directed/produced videos for “Take This Life”,” My Sweet Shadow “& “The Quite Place” just to mention a few.

For more info on Patric Ullaeus check http://www. revolver. se
“Alias” is to be released as a download single on September 26th.
For more info check http://www. nuclearblast. de

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