Reroute to Remain

I didn’t really want to believe all the negative things I heard about this album. After all, I heard almost the exact same things about CLAYMAN, and I absolutely loved that album. Unfortunately, I just can’t ignore the fact that REROUTE TO REMAIN just sounds so… watered-down. I don’t want to say that In Flames have sold out, because I don’t think that they’ve reached that point yet (you’re not likely to hear this album get heavy rotation any time soon), but I’m not very optimistic with the direction they’ve taken of late.

It’s pretty easy to see where they went wrong with this album… The band tried to integrate many different musical styles into their sound, which is a good idea when it’s done in moderation and a complete disaster when it overpowers the band’s existing sound to the point of making it all but incomprehensible… Play this to anyone who’s a fan of In Flames’ earlier material and I doubt that would be able to tell you that this was the same band that recorded JESTER RACE or WHORACLE. It’s the absence of that trademark sound that really hurts this album. On CLAYMAN, In Flames found the perfect balance between melody and aggression, while the music on REROUTE TO REMAIN lacks any strong focus or central theme to center the new additions around. It’s a shame too, because when this band is at the top of their form, they’re absolutely brilliant.

There are two types of songs on REROUTE TO REMAIN. There are the songs where the band manages to pull off integrating all the conflicting ideas… The title track is a good example of this… it manages to maintain it’s intensity throughout the entire song, and there are no jarring shifts in style within the song. “Drifter” is another fairly good track, and the chorus to “Trigger” is very catchy and fun to listen to (although the band treads on thin ice with a weird muffled effect that pops up out of nowhere). “Dawn of a New Day” is one of my favorite tracks on the album, since it’s perhaps the only track where the band sticks to their guns and comes up with something cohesive. In fact, with the exception with one or two songs near the end, the second half of the album is generally pretty successful.

Then again, there are many different things that the band attempts that just don’t work. “System” is perhaps the biggest train wreck of a song that In Flames has ever done, with utterly horrible clean vocals that sound like they could have come from any generic numetal band. “Cloud Connected” also treads that fine line between acceptable and, dare I say it, mainstream (something I thought I’d never associate with this band). “Metaphor” actually sounds like a county song at times… unbelievable! There are many other injustices apparent throughout this album, but these are the most notable.

In Flames have said that they’re working on new material that’s supposed to be the “heaviest” stuff that they’ve ever done. If this is their idea of heavy, I suggest that you stay far away from anything this band releases in the near future. It’s depressing to think that a band so talented could release something so unorganized and unsatisfying… Let’s hope that this album was just an “experiment…”