Reroute to Remain

Despite some rather far-fetched claims that In Flames went Nu Metal right after "Clayman", the band's album "Reroute to Remain", the first album of the band's post-melodic death metal period, is generally accepted as the best of this era. Far above the shitty "modern metal" sound of "Soundtrack to Your Escape", above the half-assed pseudo-comeback sound of "Come Clarity", and above the band's most recent, and trendiest, almost emo work on "A Sense of Purpose", the band apparantly didn't suck so fucking much on this album. If this is indeed true, then I have been living my life totally wrong.

This album contains all of the most basic elements of "melodic death metal". For instance, fast paced drums, a heavy rhythm section placed neatly under melodic leads, etc. Some of these songs are still pretty moshable, although not even close to the energy packed headbang-fests that manifested "Graveland", "Resin", and "Upon an Oaken Throne". However, there is alot of excess on this album which simply cannot be dismissed. The addition of cleanly sung choruses, always sanwiched between uninspired sections of modern melodic metal featuring Anders Friden screaming his head off is simply offensive, and the lyrical change from astronomy and philosophy to self-pity and depression is just ridiculous, and offensive. I can't understand why a band would dumb themselves down this way...

And here's my main problem with this album. It appears the band has "sold out", by replacing the intelligent and unique elements of their early albums by switching these elements with more modern and commercially acceptable ones. For instance, while older albums featured Anders performing at a variety of different tones and using deeper grunts and higher screams for emphasis (see: "Resin"), while sticking mostly to mid-ranged death growls, here he has erased any sort of variety in his vocals, focusing the entire album in a strained higher scream. However, these screams are totally annoying and don't inspire me at all. The clean singing, which was introduced on "Colony" (although used sparingly), has taken over the band's sound. Every single track features a cleanly sung chorus, many of which are very out of place. He actually sounds younger and far less manly than previously. Although it's cliche, these clean vocals range from KoRn inspired in some songs, to emo sounding in others. Yes, they are both present on the same album.

Almost all of these songs are genuinly bad, and a premonition of what was to come. Like "System", for instance. This track features an extremly simple "chugga-chugga" riff featuring two chords tagged at the end of the riff which give it a pseudo-melodic feel. Out of nowhere the band slow down into a power pop pre-chorus (no exagerration) before it blows up into a "metal" version of the same thing. This track is utterly terrible. Another example is "Transparent", which features a lazily thrown together opening nu metal riff, which is accompanied by souless blasting from the drums and screamed vocals. As usual, a cleanly sung chorus follows, this time featuring Anders using an effect on his voice to make it sound like he's singing into a walkie talkie. This is all followed by a lazily thrown together solo. See, the problem is that almost all of these songs start out with a cheesy, and extremly uninspired and unmemorable melodic death metal riff, usually featuring lots of chugging with only a couple notes tagged at the end giving off the melodic feel (as previously mentioned). While in the past the riffs and solos were the key ingredients to a song, here the riffs are just worthless throwaway riffs which all sound the same, with the choruses being the sole part which is memorable, and even those are generic and just scream FAIL.

The worst aspect of this album is definatly the "experimental" aspect, though. There are two acoustic tracks, "Dawn of a New Day" and "Metaphor", neither of which are very thought-provoking, although I suppose "Metaphor" provokes me to think "Hey, this fucking sucks!", so if that counts or not, I'll let you be the judge. Combined with this, the band have begun to add more "industrial" aspects to their sound, predominatly in "Cloud Connected" and "Free Fall". These two tracks show the band slowing down the overall pace of their songs to cater to the weak-minded masses, using more vocal effects, more keyboards, etc. Basically, the idea that the band that recorded "Clad in Shadows" would go on to record this, is just out of this world. There is absolutly no similarity in any way, shape, or form to the band's original sound. I honestly think "Free Fall" is the worst song on this disc.

I just really hate thinking that In Flames abandoned their tried-and-true, classic melodeath roots, for this shit. Literally, every single aspect of this album is a failure. Do not buy, or even consider buying this or anything post-"Clayman". I can't say if the rumors are true or false, as I have never listened intently to the band's later material, but from what I've heard here, how could they get any worse?