In Flames
Sounds Of A Playground Fading

The In Flames are a Swedish melodic death metal band, pioneers of the genre along with Dark Tranquillity. On the scene for 17 years, they have earned fame and respect thanks to their music which has always been very aggressive yet emphasized by well-defined melodic lines, capable of producing memorable albums like "The Jester Race," and more transatlantic-sounding albums with a decidedly majestic impact like "Colony." Well, after 3 years of waiting and after the unexpected departure of Jesper Stromblad, In Flames return with an album that continues along the tracks of their previous work, Sense of Purpose.

But if the penultimate release from Friden&Co could also turn out to be an interesting album from various perspectives, this "Sounds Of a Playground Fading" just does not convince.

The opening is the title track: here we can listen to a timid acoustic guitar playing a very melodic tune that will then culminate in the most classic of ways; nothing exceptional but it flows smoothly and is a pleasure to listen to. It's the turn of "Deliver Us" which, thanks to a series of keyboard notes, almost manages to appear as a dark track until it ends in the most banal of MTV choruses.

"All for Me" and "The Puzzle" pass by without leaving a trace; the former stands out for a decent intro followed by some well-placed riffs, while the latter seems to hew closer to the old In Flames style, but it does not fully convince. "Fear is the Weakness" thanks to a skillful use of keyboards and guitars that these artists manage to blend very well (also due to an interesting drumming section), manages to stand out from the other tracks. "Where the Dead Ships Dwell" offers no emotion; "The Attic" is useless, bland, and lacking personality, and the same goes for "Darker Time."

The song farthest from the quintet's style is "Ropes": ultra-melodic and almost entirely sung in clean vocals, only a mediocre solo in the middle manages to raise our attention for a moment from an almost nerve-wracking monotony. "Enter Tragedy" wakes us up for the beauty of four minutes. The final passage of the track is interesting, where the rhythms slow down and become heavier, giving us a Friden finally aggressive as he should be. It's time for a completely electronic song, very boring, which should serve as an interlude: "Jester's Door" is really hard to understand. Fortunately, it resumes with "A New Dawn", perhaps the most complete from a structural standpoint: the first part is characterized by a well-defined riff that immediately sticks in our ears, the central part with violins and acoustic guitars is very interesting, where the first real solo of the album also breaks in. We reach the conclusion with "Liberation" where the lowest point of the Swedish group's career is reached: blatantly melodic, almost a radio hit embellished by a useless and charmless solo, a static rhythmic section, clean vocals, and saccharine 'galore'.

So what to say about this new effort by In Flames? The main issue lies especially in the structure of the songs, truly repetitive and bland to the core. The aggression that made this Gothenburg group famous is absolutely not at home here, leaving instead ample room for harmonies that are most often bland and flat. An album that reaches mediocrity only thanks to Anders Friden's vocal performance, who continues to amaze us by experimenting this time with slightly different singing than previous albums. Ultimately, it seems that In Flames are going through a period of stagnation; in these recent works, one senses a sort of weariness, it seems that Anders and the band produce albums only to fulfill contractual obligations. We hope that the Swedish quintet will soon find their way back and give us an album worthy of their name.