Reroute to Remain

Yep, In Flames have taken the mainstream road it seems. Clayman had some good moments, but this album has even less. Also, everything that was wrong with Clayman, the percussive riffs and plethora of clean vocal passages, have been taken to a whole new level of crappiness. Although this is not a mallcore album. Most of the songs walk it’s border occasionally diving in to the other side.
Reroute to Remain has a great opening riff, and that sucks, because this song is horrible. Just when you think this is going to be a great album, the percussive riffs come in. These are followed by a horrible clean chorus.
System follows. Well at least it picks the pace up. But it does so with the fuzziest damn guitar tone I’ve ever heard. Throw in horribly over dubbed vocals which turn into Ander’s worst clean vocals ever, and you get an idea of what this song is. Plain awful.
Drifter opens with an awesome riff. Why can’t more of this be on here. Then the second riff kicks even more ass, vintage In Flames. But it would go against this album not to fuck it up with percussive riffs, and that’s what they do. Granted that riff does pop up again, but it is surrounded by so much crap it’s painful. Still, that is one of the best riffs the band has ever written.
Trigger is another song with a faster opening, and it sounds great for awhile. Then you get crap, both percussive riffs and horrible dubbed vocals. In between the crappy chorus’ and percussive muck there are some solid heavy metal moments, too bad the crap covers it up.
Cloud Connected, the first single for the album. Thus, it must epitomize all of this album’s crappiness for the trendy tards this albums has been marketed to. This sounds like a totally different band than the one that released Colony, let alone Jester’s Race. Horrible electronic effects, and a pretty mediocre solo.
Transparent wreaks of mallcore sludge crap complete with the horrible vocal effects. Every now and then a somewhat metal riff tries to crawl out from the crap but it soon gets covered again.
Dawn of a New Day, well it sounds like the name of a feminine hygiene product, and musically it fills the same role. Whiny, angst ridden, mallcore vocals over acoustic guitar. With beat machine like drums thrown in. Yep, this song sucks.
Egonomic is a faster track, and actually has some riffs that sound like In Flames in it. The chorus is total 80's pop in sound. It’s a weird mix. And like one of the reviewers below stated, the lyrics of this song fit the band entirely. It’s a good track in comparison to the rest of the crap on here.
Minus has a sludgy opening riff as well as several others just like it. More of the run of the mill crap this album is home to.
Dismiss the Cynic has a promising opening, and a great little lead. But the band must fuck it up with awkward vocal sections. Ooh, they sound like a dream... fuck this crap.
Free Fall opens with a music box, boy is that original. Then we get CoRn like vocals. This song is everything that is wrong and horrible about mallcore.
Dark Signs has a great opening, something that would fit right in the Colony album, the band tries to fuck it up with the vocals, and they succeed. Rather than a great In Flames song we get whiny angst crap vocals. Every now and then they realize they are In Flames, but soon forget and fuck the song up.
Metaphor opens up and reminds me of Moonshield’s opening a bit. But rather than kicking ass we get a whiny ballad.
Black and White is more percussive modern crap, with more mallcore vocals. God that chorus is horrible. It’s so over dubbed that it would be funny if it wasn’t so horrible.

Well touring with mallcore bands and getting a glimpse at how much playing shitty music can make you it seems In Flames has taken the path of crappiness. Clayman sounds great compared to this album. I’m glad In Flames got out of it’s inconsistent slump, but now they are consistently horrible. There are about 6 good riffs on this album and some occasional well done solos, but the rest is horrible. I can’t recommend any songs, none are consistently good.