In Flames - Come Clarity : Swedish Melodic Death Metal

I admit I am no In Flames expert. I was introduced to the Swedish, melodic death metal unit not too long ago when a member of another site sent me a handful of songs spanning from different albums. I liked about every song that was sent to me, which prompted me to purchase the band’s 2003 release, Soundtrack To Your Escape, but was disappointed with that certain album. 

While there are some enjoyable moments to for it, as a whole, Soundtrack To Your Escape didn’t seem to work well as an overall album. It lacked consistency. My plans before buying Soundtrack had been to buy the album Come Clarity because three of the four songs that had been sent to me for that album were my favorite of the fourteen songs I had. However, I then learned Come Clarity hadn’t even been released to the media yet. On Tuesday the Fourteenth of January, I planned to buy the new album at Best Buy, but when I first returned home that day from school I learned my brother had already bought the album without even revealing his intentions to do so to me. 

After both listening to the album a few times, we each liked what we heard, and I announced that I want to review the album. However, there was a problem. My brother writes music reviews too, and he wanted to review it also. Seeing as he was the one who bought it, I couldn’t argue with him, but four days passed, and he hadn’t typed a single word. I asked him if he was going to write anything on it, and he said he wouldn’t get it right, so he told me I could write it instead.

This is excellent, because I have plenty to say about In Flames’ new album, Come Clarity.

I’d like to reiterate what some of the problems that I found with Soundtrack To Your Escape were to begin this review with. As already said, it (STYE) did have some nice moments, but things such as repetitiveness, and lack of instrumental prowess is what kept it from being impressive. Plus, In Flames had made themselves known for their technical, Swedish death metal playing, but had seemed to go on a route more oriented towards nu-metal.