MY OPINION: Ive been an avid In Flames fan since the days of Whoracle. Ive seen the band only once, which was on last years edition of the Ozzfest, but I own all their albums (including reissues), so I can give a good, honest review of their albums easily. Now, as most of their hardcore fans, I initially was kinda of thrown off by their change from complete melodic death metal to thier incarnation now, but it has grown on me immensly and I now enjoy Reroute to Remain and Soundtrack to your Escape as much as, say, Colony and Clayman. So, enough of blabbering about the old days :P. On to the review.

1.Take This Life-The opening song wastes no time in blasting you in the face. A killer riff lays over some of Anders' most frantic vocal work this side of R2R. A good song, albeit not the best on the album. Also the first single. 9/10

2.Leeches-This song got me right from the beginning. The drumming and riff fits so well that the song just, well, works. I really dig the vocals and lyrics here, and it showcases a return to form with a solo from Bjorn. 10/10

3.Reflect the Storm-WOW! Thats all I have to say abou this one. Totally old-school In Flames, the kind of band I fell in love with from the beginning. A killer harmony in the beginning lashes with machine-gun drumming and riffage from Bjorn and Jesper. This song is one of the highlights of the album, aside from some others. 12/10

4.Dead End-Now heres something I wasn't expecting; A female singer on an In Flames album? New, not really innovative, but quite new for this band in itself. Ander's voice meldes well with Lisa Miskovsky's, making the song different from the others. The song is well done, but not the best on the album, but still quite good. 8/10

5.Scream-Decent song, probably the most generic on the album, aside from a few others, but it is still well done. Hey, In Flames can't really do bad things anyway. 7/10

6.Come Clarity-Holy hell. Incredible. Beautiful guitar work from Jesper in the beginning harkens back to the glory days of The Jester Race, and more specifically, Moonshield. Just listen to Peter's bass on this one. Thumping like the heartbeat of the devil! One of the highlights of the album by far! 10/10

7.Vacuum-Another song that shows a general blending of old and new In Flames. Very good song in my opinion, but not the best. Great guitar work and drumming as usual though. 8/10

8.Pacing Death's Trail-Enjoyed this song myself. Quite a good one. Again, not the best, or even one of the main highlights of the album, but still a great song on its own. 8/10

9.Crawl Through Knives-I absolutely love this song. Great music (with some cool staccatos on the main riff), killer lyrics and vocal melodies. An all-together great song. Right up there as a highlight of this album. 10/10

10.Versus Terminus-Another decent song, but not one of my pics for best songs. Great job though on its own. 8/10

11.Our Infinite Struggle-Dig this song. Good job by the guys with this one. One of the better average songs on the album but not quite a highlight. 8/10

12.Vanishing Light-Pretty good song here I must say, once again, as with the last few songs, not one of the better, but still good. (If you cant tell, the last part of the album isn't its strongest, as in most cases, except for Opeth, which I suggest checking out!) 7/10

13.Your Bedtime Story is Scaring Everyone-Picks back up alittle here in the end. This song is quite odd, and a bit slow getting started, but all-in-all, I like the song itself. Not really a highlight or anything but worth a listen just cause of the weird title. 8/10

BOTTOME LINE: This album is a great album, and a true return to form for the guys. They mixed what worked from the old with what worked from the new and made an album worthy of PLENTY attention from fans and non-fans alike. Hopefully this will bring back some of their old fans who can't except change. Check it out, you shouldn't be dissapointed, but if you're looking for The Jester's Race, this isn't it. Keep that in mind, and you'll enjoy this kiler album. Peace!

Highlights: Take This Life, Leeches, Reflect the Storm(!!), Come Clarity, Crawl Through Knives

OVERALL: 9.5/10

Well here we are. The 8th studio album from the highly acclaimed Melodic Death metal band, In Flames is out. However as most fans agree, the last two albums have been somewhat disappointing. Especially Soundtrack To Your Escape, with the lack of proper solos and Anders screaming vocals, to name a few problems. (Some have even gone so far to call them nu-metal, which is absolutely absurd, because nu-metal isn't even real metal - it's alternative metal with hip-hop/rap influences). So In Flames have brought a new album out, with "more guitar solos" and is "more upbeat." But the question still remains...are they the old In Flames, or the new? To be honest they've sort of combined the two sounds, as Anders described this album as a `best of In Flames.'

They are some strong moments in the album but also some weak. Firstly, when I think of the older In Flames, I think of well-constructed, highly melodic songs, such as Colony, Jotun, etc. Basically everything from the Jester Race to the Clayman era. These new songs don't really sound like that anymore. The harmonics between the guitars are not so strong, and don't interlock in a decent melody to remind me of the `Food for the Gods' music. On the whole the songs in the past were more epic, majestic and out of this world. Come Clarity presents a little more modernized songs. Secondly Anders voice hasn't really improved since STYE. It's not a proper death growl, unlike the other albums. It's more like a constrained scream. I'm not saying death screams aren't good, but they don't fit with In Flames' style. For example, Alexi Laiho has a high-pitched GROWL that goes well with Children of Bodom's music but Anders' SCREAM is too forced. Thirdly, some of the drumming gets out of control. Instead of the old blast beats, it's just a pounding overlay of noise. This can be felt most prominently in "Take this life", which also features Anders appalling screams. However a great solo slightly redeems the song.

Don't worry though. There are plenty of good aspects in the album: I'm only fussy because I'm a huge fan of their older stuff, and people who like both new and old, tend to agree their older material is more superficial and easily surpasses RTR and STYE. "Leeches" is a monster of a track. Only 2.55 minutes long, it bursts with energy the whole way through, including the 38-second solo. In has almost an Industrial sound to it, and a very catchy beat. "Reflect the storm" has the old In Flames classic style (albeit Anders voice).

Another good thing is that Anders clean vocals have definitely improved. On STYE his voice sounded strangled, but they are much better now. "Come Clarity" is a shocker. It sounds nothing like a melodic death metal song, but a slow but heavy power metal song. There is beautiful clean vocals, with Anders singing "I want you to lead me, take me somewhere, just don't want to live, in a dream one more day." This could hardly be called a `melodic DEATH metal song.' Especially with the lyrics.

"Pacing Death's Trail" has a very catchy beat, and is exactly like the old In Flames, lyrics, music, drumming and everything. Anders voice goes pretty well with this song.

"Crawl through knives", "Vacuum" "Versus Terminus" and "Our Infinite Struggle" all have `death growls/(screams)' for the verses but clean singing for their chorus.

An interesting song is "Dead End" which features the female vocals of Lisa Miskovsky. It fits rather well with the music, and chorus (clean singing by Anders), and contrasts vividly with the death screams.

A song to be wary of is "Scream." This is rubbish for In Flames' standards. In fact a mediocre band should be ashamed of producing such nonsense. Basically as far as the music goes think: Linkin Park. A cruel comparison, but when hearing the chorus it's exactly what it sounds like. Obviously it's a lot heavier, but it's just an embarrassment. The lyrics go like "I say scream, you scream. Scream, we scream but no one listens", with Anders literally screaming the words. Gah. Avoid at all costs. The song isn't even structured well; it's boring and annoying.

"Your bedtime story is scaring everyone" is a slow atmospheric long song to close the album. It's slightly pointless though. You get 3.45 minutes of scuffling noises, with a chord here and there, then Anders voice suddenly booms out and ends at 4.30 leaving some more scuffling noises.

In a nutshell: Anders clean singing voice is great; his growling is no longer a proper growl but a bark; Jesper and Bjorn play well, but they don't harmonise enough (except for a few old-sounding songs like "Dead end", which has the Godly harmonies); the bass is good, but the guitars cover the sound sometimes; and Daniel's drumming is good (epecially in "reflect the storm", but in some songs ("Take this life" and "scream") there's an excess of pounding instead of the well crafted blast bleats.

Now this may seem like a harsh review, but considering In Flames are my favourite band, I have very high expectations of them, and this is a review mainly to old-school fans. For a random band, this album would probably get 5 stars. To new fans of In Flames or melodic death metal, I'd advise you to get the first 5 albums first!

IN FLAMES - Come Clarity

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Coming off their last releases: Reroute to Remain + Soundtrack to your Escape many fans were left wondering what was next.... To be honest I was worried. Let me tell you all to Stop Worrying!

COME CLARITY is able to blend the best of later day In Flames' experimental sound with the raw-aggression that made Colony such an amazing CD. I had felt that both `Reroute' and `Soundtrack' had some alright tracks but they also had too many experimental nu-metal tracks filled with lots of Clean singing... (And sadly each album had only a handful of songs that really sounded like In Flames. The rest were just too `out there' for what fans had come to expect.) I believe this album is what the band was really aiming for after Clayman.

I know it's hard to look forward with a band when they change directions you really can't expect another `Jester's Race', `Whoracle' or even another `Colony'... But in comparison to their last 2 albums this is a definite step towards progression. This is album is littered with catchy sing along Choruses (Which actually sound great...) and powerful hard-driven melodic riffs. Anders clean voice has never sounded better and his growls are more ferocious than ever. The rest of the band is, as always, amazing... Few bands can compete with their Musicianship and overall Song Writing.

Finally it seems as though the band returned to form and I, for one, could not be happier....

[Can't wait to see them February 21st in Toronto!]

Favorite Songs: Take This Life, Pacing Deaths Trail, Versus Terminus and Vanishing Light.

-4.25

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"Come Clarity", the latest album by the highly influential Gothenburg melodic metal act In Flames, is a strong album that mixes both their modern and older sound very nice. It's a good recovery album after the mediocrity of "Soundtrack To Your Escape", which only had a few highlights and nothing more.

"Take This Life", the first single of this album, shows promise. With staccato riffage in the beginning and a more dynamic sound, it got me looking into this album. Other tracks such as "Leeches" and "Crawl Through Knives" show off more spectacular work from this band. "Come Clarity" was a surpise for me, though, as it was more of a ballad. The only thing that the band could improve on more is the clean singing. However, if you're not a vocalist purist, you may be able to get by it.

Overall, this album gets a 4. The band has not lost hope, but this disc doesn't have the band going back to the "Lunar Strain" and "The Jester Race" anytime soon. Recommended for something original.

This is a fast paced super sick cd. All the tracks are fierce and unrelenting. Again this band has made a perfect Album. In my opinion is the best since Clayman!!!

Take This Life, Vacuum, and Crawl Through Knives!!!!

SICK SICK SICK!!!!!!

GET THIS CD!!!!!!!

10/10 FIVE STARS*****