In Flames – Sounds Of A Playground Fading (Century Media)
Ever since hearing Illud Divinum Insanus, the mostly-awful new Morbid Angel release, I have been afraid to listen to the new In Flames album. I have always liked Morbid Angel, but since they never ranked as one of my absolute top favorite bands, I found their newest stuff to be amusing and depressing, not much more. But In Flames are the band that got me into melodic death metal in 8th grade, and I can’t listen to Colony, Clayman, or Reroute To Remain without getting extremely nostalgic and stoked at the same time.
Then, whilst ruminating on the topic, I had a revelation. In Flames cannot possibly make a disappointing, hilariously out of touch album because they have been slowly changing and evolving into a new band since the album Reroute To Remain. Behind the scenes, I’m sure it’s taken even longer than that. The band has been around since 1990, went from playing keyboard-heavy melodic black metal to making some of the best and most hard-hitting Swedish melodic death metal of all time, and then switched to playing catchier, electronically-influenced stuff. They aren’t some resurrected death metal band who decided to play something that would have appealed to high-school kids five years ago; they aren’t even Autopsy, who’s new stuff is pretty good, but who seem a bit awkwardly forced into playing together again. They are a band that have been doing their own thing for years, and love it or hate it, you can’t write it up as a one-off to pay the bills. They have been working at it.
In Flames – Sounds Of A Playground Fading (Century Media)
Ever since hearing Illud Divinum Insanus, the mostly-awful new Morbid Angel release, I have been afraid to listen to the new In Flames album. I have always liked Morbid Angel, but since they never ranked as one of my absolute top favorite bands, I found their newest stuff to be amusing and depressing, not much more. But In Flames are the band that got me into melodic death metal in 8th grade, and I can’t listen to Colony, Clayman, or Reroute To Remain without getting extremely nostalgic and stoked at the same time.
Then, whilst ruminating on the topic, I had a revelation. In Flames cannot possibly make a disappointing, hilariously out of touch album because they have been slowly changing and evolving into a new band since the album Reroute To Remain. Behind the scenes, I’m sure it’s taken even longer than that. The band has been around since 1990, went from playing keyboard-heavy melodic black metal to making some of the best and most hard-hitting Swedish melodic death metal of all time, and then switched to playing catchier, electronically-influenced stuff. They aren’t some resurrected death metal band who decided to play something that would have appealed to high-school kids five years ago; they aren’t even Autopsy, who’s new stuff is pretty good, but who seem a bit awkwardly forced into playing together again. They are a band that have been doing their own thing for years, and love it or hate it, you can’t write it up as a one-off to pay the bills. They have been working at it.
With this in mind, I delved into the album, hoping not to have to write a scathing review of one of my favorite bands. And truth be told, it’s not a bad release at all. Sure, there are a few clean-vocal parts that are kind of cringeworthy, or weird effects that just sound annoying without some kind of nice surround-sound system. The departure of long-time guitarist Jesper Strömblad doesn’t seem to have hurt the band terribly. His replacement, Niclas Engelin, seems to be competent at playing leads and writing catchy riffs, although there are definitely moments where his playing seems a bit lackluster in comparison with Strömblad’s.
In fact, there are quite a few songs on the album that, taken alone, I would consider powerful, hard-hitting metal ballads that could make me tear up a little if they caught me at the right moment. In Flames collaborated with drum and bass group Pendulum on their album Immersion, and that collaboration, “Self Vs. Self,” has a similar sound as the songs on this album. It works awesomely alongside Pendulum’s dancier material; the only problem is that every song on Playground is structured the same way, so eventually the epic-sad-heaviness just becomes ineffective and I begin to tune everything out. A lot of the songs sound more like A Sense of Purpose and Reroute to Remain rather than the more unfocused Soundtrack to Your Escape, but none of the songs approach the intensity or originality of Reroute. Instead, a lot of it just sounds like rehashed songs from A Sense of Purpose.
Lyrically, this album has quite an intentional arc, and I’m surprised more reviews haven’t pointed it out. The beginning of the album is very angry; songs like “All for Me” and “Fear is the Weakness” at the beginning of the album are aggressively laden with themes of betrayal and desperation. The theme then turns to brooding depression with songs like “Darker Times” and “Enter Tragedy,” which are all about giving up hope. Next comes the awkward spoken track “Jester’s Door,” on which Anders gets a bit too literal, saying (not singing, mind you): “I went from wreckage to world class, with a box of T-shirts and some records to sell. But times have changed, I have to defend my actions.” The last two songs, “A New Dawn” and “Liberation,” focus on new beginnings. I’m pretty sure the boys are trying to tell us, in a not-so-subtle manner, that the band is about to call it quits.
I won’t painstakingly rehash every moment of this album because, as I said earlier, each song really does have the same structure from beginning to end: some sort of soft or acoustic intro that mounts into shouting vocals, and then breaks through into a big-sounding melodic chorus of emotion, broken up by some classical sounding leads and chugging breakdowns that carry it through to the end. There are, however, some idiosyncrasies that are worth pointing out. The third song, “All for Me,” is considerably catchy and hooky. Its follow-up, “The Puzzle,” has a distinctly d-beat rhythm and crushing sound, and is arguably the heaviest song on the album. “The Attic” is a haunting, mostly acoustic song that is reminiscent of “Metaphor” and some of the other songs on Reroute to Remain. Anders’ creepy, raw, and heavily accented voice comes across as strong as ever and the song provides a refreshing change from the big choruses found elsewhere. “Ropes” also features this change, although it ventures a bit too far into the realm of the cheesy with weird echo affects and overly strained vocals. After that, the album really starts to blend together, with the exception of the weird, spoken, “Jester’s Door,” which catches listeners off guard.
Overall, I would say In Flames are very self-conscious on this album. They’re aware of the fact that the band is coming to a close, and aware that their new direction has not been embraced by all. Still, they never apologize for themselves, and the record never strays too far into obviously-just-singing-about-our-career territory, or any territory comparable to “Radikult” off of the new Morbid Angel release. It’s time to say goodbye to some of the forefathers of extreme music, but at least, unlike some people, In Flames know it’s their time to go.
