Clayman

Somehow, between Colony and this, a lot of things changed. For one thing, Anders voice got even crappier, in his desire to defeat Gene Adams in being the worst vocalist in all of metal. For another, the guitarists decided to rid themselves of the melodies that had served them so well, and just start chunking. The result is Clayman, the first in the rapid decline of In Flames from a kickass melodic death metal band to a band that would soon rival Korn in mallcore shittiness.

The album begins with Bullet Ride, where we get our first glimpse of Anders's incredibly terrible clean voice. No cool riffs, crappy vocals, and an average solo makes a crappy song. It actually sounds pretty good live, though. The next song, Pinball Map, opens up promisingly with a good riff. Unfortunately, thats as far as it gets before we get to an uninspired verse. The prechorus once again shows a nice riff, but then the chorus kicks in, and Anders ruins all. Another bad track.

Only For The Weak opens up with an extremely nice melodic lead, and the guitars are quite nice during the beginning of the verse. Of course, Anders is terrible, but then we get to the prechorus chorus, which are enjoyable. Add a nice solo and we have the first good song on the album. Not Jester Race good, but still good.

As the Future Repeats Today starts off crappily, but shows some signs of goodness at different points in the song, particularly the solo section. In the end, an average song. Square Nothing has some excellent acoustic riffs, but unfortunately, Anders delivers an extremely terrible performance on this album. The guitar saves it. Nice chorus. A good song.

Clayman is the first song that is actually very good. Great melodic leads, no stupid clean vocals from Anders... sounds like it could have been on Colony. Good work. Satellites and Astronauts.. another average song. Good parts, Anders singing parts.. whatever. Not worthy of too much time. Brush the Dust Away is yet another completely average song. Damn filler.

And then we get to the best song on the album, and the only exceptional one. This one is Jester Race good. It's Swim. Anders refrains from using stupid vocals, the guitarists use excellent melodies, and even some nice riffs. Definitely a winner. Then Suburban Me comes on. Eew. Mainly mallcore. No. Good solo though. Whatever can be said about this CD, the guitar solos have definitely improved.

The last is Another Day in the Quicksand. Another incredibly crappy track. This song shadows the crappiness that is to come. Crappy riffs, repetitive riffs. Once again, a nice solo.

Well, there we have it. Two great songs, and a bunch of average and good ones. In Flames truly went downhill with this release, and unfortunately, would go even more downhill with their next two. They really need to cut Anders and get a new vocalist, and of course, bring the melodies back. Alas, it will never happen. Download the good songs, and go buy Jester Race for some good In Flames.