Reroute to Remain

If In Flames's previous effort, "Clayman", had left a disquieting number of fans unsatisfied (I'm not among them), "Reroute To Remain" managed to unleash an authentic uproar (just look at the number of reviews it got on this site!). Rumors about In Flames going mainstream started to spread long before pirated mp3's made their appearance, and when it was finally released... well, all I can say is that I had very mixed feelings about this one.
Now that some time has passed, I took my time to sit through the whole album again and try to write down some more cool-minded impression. And there sevral surprises manifested, some good, some bad...

If I had to describe "Reroute To Remain" in just one word, I wouln't hesitate: FORCED. Literally everything in this album sounds artificial, manufactured and twisted into square pre-ordered patterns in an almost painful way.
The most prominent example being, of course, Anders's clean vocals.
When rumours started raging like wildfire, there was much disgusted talk about the massive amount of clean vocals used in "Reroute To Remain". Personally, I didn't see it as a bad thing, as his clean vocals that were sparsely used on the older records weren't half bad in my book.
Not anymore. Here, his clean voice sounds incredibly weak, uninspired, as well as overridden by countless effects which only make it worse. He also seems to have developed a weird and rather unpleasant nasal tone, although whether this is down to him or the aforementioned overuse of studio effects is hard to say.
When I say these clean vocals are forced, I actually mean two separate things. The most obvious is that the vocals themselves sound forced, as in several section it's painfully apparent that Anders is just trying too hard; the other aspect is that the songwriting seems to be bound and tied to this pattern, which leads to a predictably bland result. The need to include clean vocals at all costs often forces the otherwise interesting songwriting to take abrupt detours into dull soundscapes, as well as undermining variety from the very start. By the time you reach track 6, you already know what is bound to happen, which makes me think that the real title was actually meant to be "Reroute To Refrain".
Another extremely weak point of the album is the very, very muddy production. You can say what you want about the Gothenburg Metal scene, but nobody can deny that these bands deliver a crushing album sound.
Not anymore. Here, the guitars hardly have any shard of sharpness left into their lame tone, the drums are still loud but rather muffled, the vocals are held back by a poor mix and yes, those stupid effects, and the keybaords / electro-inserts (another "sellout-factor" of this album, along with clean vocals) sound far too loud and intrusive. As in too many Metal records, the bass sound has been nearly completely lost somewhere along the way.
Finally... the songwriting. As I said: forced, unnatural. We still get a fair share of good ideas, but they get mixed with some really huge letdowns. The result is that on this album we get songs whose great potential is butchered by the poor sound, the forced clean bits, etc., and songs which are undeniably filler material which turn even worse due to the same negative elements.
All of this will inevitably lead to an inconsistent product, and sadly, no miracles occurred to save "Reroute To Remain" from this fate.

Despite all the bad sides, the album has a deceptively promising beginning. The opening song, the title track, still manages to sound like a solid post-"Whoracle" In Flames anthem (if you look past the weak sound, of course), maybe with the only drawback of seeming to take a bit too long before really taking off. But then, all of a sudden, the chorus kicks in, and everything falls apart as the interesting riffing turns into a horrid chord sequence which sounds stolen from the local gay boyband, backed with singalong like vocals which are just plain ridiculous. It's amazing how this cringe-inducing chorus manages to destroy any good impression the song might have made thus far. What a waste.
"System" sounds like the son, or maybe the little brother, of "Pinball Map" (from "Clayman"): same key / tuning and same structure... well, almost. First we are assaulted (or at least we were supposed to be, before some idiot engineer did what he did to this record) by a speedy verse with pretty fast harsh singing (which here gets garbled by way too many effects), then a quiet and rather desolate bridge leads into a powerful yet melodic chorus. The ideas are damn good, the riffs are interesting, with a nice number of key shifts to keep the attention high, and even Anders sounds convincing and not excessively whiney in the calmer sections. As said, it's the production which really keeps this track from releasing its full potential.
"Drifter" brings some more good speed in the picture, with clean vocals making only a brief cameo in the chorus, and guess what - this is arguably the song that mostly reminds of "old" In Flames on the whole album. Inevitably I'll say it's a real pity and a shame, but on the other hand it proves that these guys haven't lost it completely. However, a pretty good song.
And here comes "Trigger", and here comes more butchered potential. The beginning of this song actually reminds more than just a bit of "Jotun", the opening track on "Whoracle", which can't be bad at all... only, when the verse kicks in, the cool riffs disappear and only Anders is left to shriek out the verses with the only company of a very basic drum pattern and some background buzzing noise which I think should be the bass. Horrific. Luckily, the guitars come back in for the bridge, and the chorus is probably where the interaction between the classic In Flames sound and the newly included clean vocals works best, because the riff isn't half bad and the vocal pattern manages to be memorable and effective. What a pity for that stupid verse arrangement, and for a disastrous but thankfully brief "hi-tech" interlude (everything disappears and only Anders is left whining with the company of a drum machine loop, ALL of this filtered through a very dumb effect) which occurs TWICE in th second half of the song when a single shot would be one too many.
Enter the first single, "Cloud Connected"... the first thing I have to say is that placing it right after "Trigger" was the WORST idea they could have. These two songs have a very similar structure; only, "Cloud Connected" doesn't have nearly as many good elements as "Trigger", and ends up sounding like a watered down version of the former track. There isn't really much to say here, apart from the nice vocal trick in the verse featuring Anders gradually switching from clean to harsh vocals, the somwhat nice to listen to chorus (if you can get past its shamelessly basic structure) and a oh so modern electronic loop which opens the song and lasts until the end.
So far the album manages to stay tolerable, although far from In Flames quality standards. Sadly, the worst is yet to come.

"Transparent" is a damn good title for a track you could metaphorically stare through without noticing it's there. This is filler garbage par excellence, you could play it several times and it would still leave you with nothing, except maybe disgust. The guitars are tuned ridiculously low, their sound is made even more indecipherable by the lousy production and the riffing is virtually nonexistent. Think about Mortician playing a cross between "The Burning Red"-era Machine Head and Slipknow, and add Anders's most annoying whining choked by all those dumb vocal effects that plagued Slayer since "Divine Intervention", only made a lot worse. This is "Transparent", and what makes me even more mad at it is that a really cool solo surfaces among all this trash, and therefore gets completely wasted. Please reroute to something better.
"Dawn of a New Day" opens with the very soothing sound of acoustic guitars, and manages to evolve as a short nice ballad, Anders thankfully sounding a lot more convincing that the previous track. Oh yeah, and someone found the bass tracks and brought them back into this song!!
"Egonomic" has a very speedy and rather noisy opening, which can be somewhat pleasing or utterly annoying depending on your mood at the moment; at any rate the boys soon realize they're not there to mime Strapping Young Lad and dive head first into yet another lame chorus, which will severeky grate your ears no matter what mood you're in.
"Minus" has some more typical and interesting In Flames riffing, with *gasp* a cool cleanvocal bit in the bridge! Anders even pulls off a clever dual-track harmony. Wow. A track that seems to bring the album back to the standard of tracks 2 to 5 (well, count the first too just leaving out that overwhelmingly reeking pool of sewage that is its chorus). But it doesn't last for long.

"Dismiss the Cynics" is another member of the "Trigger" / "Cloud Connected" family, only even less inspiring and interesting. In other words, skip.
"Free Fall" opens with a little weird keyboard loop which would have so much more sense if it kept playing when the first riff comes in; I am pretty sure this was the original intention and I could also point out that maybe it IS still there, only made inaudible by... you know what by this point. Anyway, the aforementioned first riff, which also happens to be the chorus riff, is the only cool part of the song, and gets boring fast, so that "Free Fall" lives up to its title and promptly takes a free fall into the pit of mediocrity. In other words, skip.
"Dark Sings"... I actually had to play this track again before writing anything about it, because I couldn't recall a thing about it. This is enough to tell you how interesting and outstanding it is... The thing that sticks the most to my mind is the opening riff, because it sounds suspiciously similar to the first riff of Amorphis's "On Rich and Poor". The chorus manages to sound similar to "Cloud Connected"'s YET AGAIN... in other words, skip.
And here comes the lowlight of the album: "METAPHOR"!!! What's so wrong about this track? I will list what is good with it: it's short. Everything else about it is bad. Actually, it's very bad. More in depth, it sucks. To be really honest I'd say it blows goat balls in hell, but that sounds unprofessional.
This "ballad", if we want to call it this way ("the real sound of diahorrea" would be the right definition) is comprised of a whopping TWO riffs, both of which would belong on a record by, say, N-stynk or Christina Shaguilera. Anders sounds so intolerably lame, the way he whines out the chorus ("the sickness that you ahaarrre, a plague that made me stahaarrrve, do you think you can show me... how I got this fahaarrrr?") urges the listener to slap his face until he wakes the fuck up and begins proviing some more stuff worth of the REAL In Flames. Unforgivable and insulting. Skip, for the love of your health.
"Black and White" inevitably sounds so incredibly better than the previous abomination, but actually is a nice little song on its own. Pity once more for those dumb, distorted effects on the verse... but at least it doesn't scream for the skip button. Oh well, you can't skip it anyway because it's the last track on the cd.

Time to draw concusions... not so good, I'm afraid. As I said, this album could be cool at points, but fails to develope the right ideas in an effective way. Besides, when it's bad, it's really bad, and even its best moments are no match for In Flames's back catalogue.
At least we can hope for better results next time around, as creativity still shows here and there. Besides, Anders has now his side project Passenger to show his more "relaxed" side, so he won't need to do that on the next record, maybe... this, however, means blaming him for the whole thing and it wouldn't be fair. I mean, it's the whole band who did this, so they all have their share of guilt.
I won't say I still recommend this album to die-hard In Flames fans, because I am one of them myself. I only hope I won't be saying "I used to be on of them myself" in the near future.