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The seventh album provided by Swedish In Flames is going to cause many metalheads around the world to frown and shake their heads in disapproval. After "Reroute To Remain" the band was accused of being too numetal. Now, personally I won't go as far as calling the music numetal, but the influences are pretty clear. As you all know, In Flames started out by playing melodic death / trash by the Swedish Gothenburg recipe, but have since the start altered their sound and developed a mixture between heavy metal riffing and numetal vocals. Now, I like some of the guitar riffs and I think that the drums are just in order. My problem lies with the vocals. I don't like this Jonathan Davis inspired sort of anxiety thing that Anders Fridén's got going. I have no problem with nu-metal, I am not one of those narrowminded people that talk about staying "true" and so on, but I don't like the complete suicidal and pitiful atmosphere that some of this music provides. It feels slighly pathetic and I will have no part in it. Those are the vibes that I get from listening to "Soundtrack to your escape" and that's one of the reasons I won't give this a particularly good grading.
There are some highlights though. The opening riff from track number four (My sweet shadow) just to name an example, but it's ruined by the upcoming verse where the guitars stop playing and the singer is sort of sighing a couple of words. That's what happens in most of the songs, where you have a kick-ass riff and a singer that wants to do something completely different. In my opinion some of these styles that this band tries to mix, just don't fit together. It gives you a sort of divided impression of the entirety. Don't get me wrong. I often encourage experiments and mixing styles together. That's a way to keep the music from beeing static. But some mixtures don't appeal to me at all, and unfortunately this is one of those cases. So no. This album is not going to stay in my cd player longer than necessary. Which means right about now, while I am finishing these words. I don't hate it, but I don't really like it. And that's that.
| Tracklist |
| 1. F(r)iend |
| 2. The Quiet Place |
| 3. Dead Alone |
| 4. Touch Of Red |
| 5. Like You Better Dead |
| 6. My Sweet Shadow |
| 7. Evil In A Closet |
| 8. In Search For I |
| 9. Borders And Shading |
| 10. Superhero Of The Computer Rage |
| 11. Dial 595-Escape |
| 12. Bottled |
: 45.13
| Buy other In Flames albums |
