Metal Reviews
Metal Reviews
IN FLAMES |
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Previously billed in heavy rock circles as "one to watch," it's easy to see why upon positioning this new disc in the CD tray, standing back, and letting it roar.burn baby burn! In Flames reach new heights with this latest masterpiece, "Colony," which will make a true believer out of metal skeptics everywhere. Think you've heard it all before? No room for growth or excitement within the confines of prevailing music labels and the preponderance of similar bands all writing the same song with different titles? Think again. Not since the tremendous "Slaughter of the Soul" from At the Gates has their been an album that's gotten me this pumped. That one is more than likely one that many fans point to when digging through the rubble for that "landmark" album that just sets the standard for the rest to follow. "Colony" will be the next one to set the industry on its ear. In league with the newest material from other closely related artists as Blackstar Rising and current labelmates Night in Gales, another budding superstar of the realm, "Colony" spits fire at every angle leaving any potential thoughts of doubt, smoldering in the dark. It's like when you meet someone who you really dig and you know its too good to be true and so you'll try and try to find fault, even in the slightest degree to allow a conceivable let down be easier to absorb, yet for all your efforts, you can't do it. In much the same way, this album is faultless. "Colony" has everything going for it, particularly recalling traditional metal borrowing the best left behind from vintage Maiden, with hints of Goth, to transitional black-styles powerfully displayed with a bombastic production where the drums just explode and the battling twin axes in full splendor. (No offense to mother-in-laws in general, you understand). You'll need a rest at about the halfway point so the band graciously provided a minute's worth of kick back with "Pallar Anders Visa," a short term orchestral maneuver, hypnotic in its effect, before fading aside for one of the album's heaviest and best, "Coerced Coexistence." A breakout of a song, it twists and turns it's way through your mind leaving an eventual paralysis that'll go far in explaining the charred remains left of you four songs later. If In Flames' "Colony" is representative of the hopeful direction heavy metal's continuing to move in as we head toward the next century, it's going to create an earthshaking effect that'll quickly put to rest any previous causes any of us had to bitch about in the first place. trust me, being engulfed never felt so good. Released on Nuclear Blast, Hauptstrasse 109. 73 072, Donzdorf. Germany Website : http://www.nuclearblast.de Email: death@nuclearblast.de Review By Vinnie Apicella. |
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"The Tokyo Showdown" In Flames |
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Power from the North migrates eastward for an evening and captured live, "The Tokyo Showdown," In Flames' first live album and fifteen tracks of some of the best Metal in any of the four divisions of the globe. The crowd, evidently shocked into silence by the live surges emanating around them… and yes, this is in fact an overdue occurrence for a band having now logged seven albums and a decade's worth of existence. In Flames' impact on the Death Metal scene was immediate, with such early slabs of melody-induced mayhem, "The Jester Race," "Whoracle," and later "Colony" to name but a few, a model of pummeling consistency, justifiably recognized as one of the premier Melodic/Death acts amongst an overcrowded down directed elevator of also-rans and ship jumpers. Technical precision comfortably resides amongst wrought iron and refined groove to touch off a fire quickly burning out of control-"Bullet Ride," for openers, "Embody The Invisible," from their unsurpassed "Colony" release of a couple years back, "Jotun," and "Food For the Gods," compelling back to back set from their wicked "Whoracle" 1997 release, an album that dominates the early going of the set before "Episode 666" closes things out-choose it first or last, couldn't pick a better one for effect. The sound is first class, not to go out on a limb there in saying that-we all know about the miracle of modern mixing, yet its very up close and on you in a hurry with little lost in the mud and now that's saying something for a style such as theirs, not so much the band itself. One of the better moments from their last "Clayman" studio release, that being the title track, lets loose the reigns after the plodding "Moonshield" and while I wasn't overly impressed with "Clayman" as an album, this was one of their more inspired moments-the production suffered more than anything else-plus the fact that it followed "Colony," which I believe to still be their high water mark. Right down to the magnificent cover art which features crossed flags, Sweden and Japan, fronted by a burning shield and off in the distance, Tokyo, either burning or aglow from the setting sun… Masterful effort on all counts. Released on Nuclear
Blast, Hauptstrasse 109. 73 072, Donzdorf. Germany Review By Vinnie Apicella.
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