In Flames
Come Clarity

THE REVIEW

It has been two years since the controversial "Soundtrack To Your Escape," and the five Swedes return to the scene with this album that early fans will not appreciate much. I say this with certainty because those who are used to hearing only breakneck speeds, Anders' scream vocals, and no electronic sounds will be disappointed. After all, nothing else can be expected given the last two works. Personally, I would divide In Flames' career into two parts, where "Colony" marks the end of the first part and "Clayman" the beginning of the second, where the band decides to explore more electronic realms to break away and evolve from the Swedish death/thrash that characterized them at the beginning (especially Jester). The current album respects the sequence of musical events heard in the most recent works, and it turns out to be the most complete, rich, and imaginative.

Anders uses clean vocals more and more often, alternating them with screamed parts with truly incredible and unchanged grit and strength over the years. The others confirm the combo's skill and the quest for evolution from the Scandinavian metal scene, now full of bands that hit hard but haven't played anything new for years. The album opens with the punch in the face of "Take This Life," which is certainly one of the most successful episodes of the work, with its speed and Anders "bellowing" throughout the song, with the few calm moments seasoned with some clean vocals. The driving rush of the opener gives way to the more electronic and slower (but still charged) "Leeches." It is followed by "Reflect The Storm," a negligible episode, somewhat flat and lacking punch. "Dead End" starts fast but presents us with a female voice (which reminds me of tracks by some metal bands with a "pink" voice), but I won't let myself be betrayed by these unusual female breaks; indeed, the song hits well, is easy to listen to, and gets easily stuck in your head. Here we come to the three songs that impressed me the most, namely "Scream," "Come Clarity," and "Vacuum." Starting with the compact "Scream," very well played and sung by the crazy Anders who offers one of the best performances of the album: headbanging is a must. The title track opens with filtered vocals accompanied by an acoustic guitar, then moves to more metal realms but never runs too fast: the attempt at unsweetened yet pleasant melodicity is commendable.

Right after, we are overwhelmed by the rousing speed of "Vacuum," certainly one of the best songs ever written by In Flames from "Clayman" to today and perhaps the best on the album: it manages to combine execution speed and the rawness of the verses with the calmer, clean-vocal breaks of the choruses. The journey continues with "Pacing Death's Trail," which, although not adding anything to the work, is a powerful song in full In Flames style; "Crawl Through Knives" is another "flames style" 100% full of choirs and great riffs, with a promising start but the final result doesn't stick and doesn't entirely convince; the beautiful "Venus Terminus" once again lets us feel our souls, with few frills, high speeds, and lots of good metal. "Our Infinite Struggle" stays on high levels and goes from steady rhythms to slower and more powerful passages, to the arpeggiated and almost reflective central part, it would not have looked out of place on "Colony." "Vanishing Light" contains a remarkable guitar work and a notable charge and prepares us for the fury of the closing song. Instead of a fury, we get 5 minutes of great intensity, 5 minutes of goosebumps, I have no words, to define this completely out-of-the-box song from the band's musical history, a must-listen.

In conclusion, the album is not indispensable, yet it does not disappoint listeners who have made peace with the fact that In Flames will NEVER again make "Jester part 2." This is In Flames, still playing loudly and far outclassing the bunch of young blonde Swedes trying to make their way by imitating the Swedish style of the early '90s, thinking that just going fast is enough to be good, but they are wrong, they still have a long way to go and In Flames once again shift the coordinates of "made in Sweden" metal.