Sounds of a Playground Fading

So if you are a Gothenburg fan and have not been lying inside a cryogenic sleep chamber for the last couple of months, you know the utterly impossible has happened and Jesper Stromblad has quit In Flames. Sure, this is not as alarming as if Steve Harris had waved The Beast goodbye, and Jesper hasn’t been exactly writing everything for the group lately, but not every band can survive the departure of a key songwriter easily. The interesting thing is that In Flames has. You'd be hard pressed to actually tell the difference.

If you know the band, you know they work around a formula for almost every album, and this one is, obviously, ASOP's more eclectic brother. The blueprint is laid down the same way: moshing palm muted riffs, “wall of sound” production, clean sung hooks, acoustic stuff to create a faux back-to-the-roots feel and all that stuff. I was hoping for the input of newcomer Niclas Engelin, but the man brought nothing new to the table (as Bjorn pretty much wrote the entire album) and Peter Iwers keeps on holding to his “Bassist that could not give less of a shit” trophy for dear life, so we don't get that much of a change.

However, once again In Flames falters when it comes to songwriting. It might sound like nitpicking, but the listener will soon notice how the first seconds of “Darker Times”, “Enter Tragedy” and “The Puzzle” sound almost the same, while the title track and “Darker Times” have the same chord progression for the chorus. Check it out, you can safely sing the former’s chorus into the latter and vice-versa. Again, I don’t mean to be a nitpicking asshole, but that reeks of lazy work and shouldn’t be present on an album by a band that is hailed by their new fans as being so adventurous and ever-changing.

The most unsettling aspect, at least for me, was the existence of “Liberation”, which is the perfect example (not to say proof) of how this band desires to be Sweden’s heavier answer to 30 Seconds to Mars. A dreadful pop/alt rock song that features brain-dead instrumentation and probably Jared Leto himself, because Anders comes up as a pretty convincing sound-alike, except for his inclination towards nasal singing. Let’s make things simple: If you’re aiming to play on the radio, just release a pop album already and stop pretending to be some kind of revolutionary modern metal band. I don’t know what is worse, actually; if it’s the actual song or the myriad of fans that will applaud this piece of crap, declaring the band to be oh so open minded.

Well… Lyrically, for the first time in years, Anders seems to be showing sparks of the poetic stuff from the old days amidst the whole adolescent ennui. I for one can see a stark difference from the lyrics of the title track (which seem to claim the film “Children of Men” as an influence) and stuff like “You'll never understand me/and I don't care what you think/or maybe I do” from “The Puzzle” or maybe “I'm tired; I'm fed up of this life!” from “Enter Tragedy”. Tracks are also plagued (again) by the "You and me" lyrical dead end, and another awful cliché rears its ugly head here, the “I need your help/I need you to help me somehow” idiocy. This way of writing romantic/tragic lyrics often degenerates into a cheesy, emo-ish pastiche when used in a shallow way like this. Check it out at tracks 4, 6 and 10 and you’ll see. Summing up, pretty much every lyric here, (except for tracks 1 and 2) would perfectly fit on Come Clarity with its glaring emo sensibilities. And I don’t mean it as some kind of cheap insult, seriously. Maybe it is just me. I just find it damn hard to take a bunch of old guys (only one, actually) writing about pre-pubescent affection seriously, just as much as I take Rhapsody and their dragons, sorcery and enchanted swords.

Not much can be said about the singer’s performance either. This album contains way less screams and more cleans, though; "Ropes” features mostly clean vocals, and I mean CLEAN, without a hint of any distortion whatsoever. On this particular track, I don't find Anders’ voice particularly grating, but he desperately needs vocal coaching to teach him how to control things, because his voice cracks incessantly and that hiccup that has been plaguing (in my opinion) his voice since, I don’t know, goddamn Skydancer is not a good sign. Seriously, get some coaching to help you get a grip on what remains of your cords. The cool tricks and layers of backing vocals will never be able to fully help outside the studio doors.

As per usual, In Flames sometimes sheds off the trash and comes up with some interesting stuff. Just like “My Sweet Shadow”, “The Puzzle” ends with a memorable and beautiful atmospheric guitar/keyboard line, while Daniel (who is inexplicably formulaic here) finds himself some space to write an attention grabbing pattern in the really good intro of “All for Me”, on which the bass drum adds a measure each time the power chord soars. Props also go to “A New Dawn” with its tasteful middle break and a feeling that should please Colony/Clayman fans a lot, and I found myself really enjoying the duo between the orchestral elements and the electric ones nearing the end of the song before the last chorus.

While Bjorn shows signs of weakness at writing good rhythm guitar riffs, his leads come up as pretty rocking overall. Oh, and the majority of the choruses is surprisingly catchy, probably being the album's best asset amidst the sub-par songwriting, for “Sounds of a Playground Fading” acts just like a pop album; if the songs are getting a little bit boring, the choruses will probably pick them up, and it is up to you if this is a good thing or not. I particularly don’t mind chorus-driven, straightforward albums, IF the other parts of the songs manage to catch my attention as well. Unfortunately, most of the songs here are boringly uneventful until the chorus comes to keep the skip button away from you.

In Flames took another step into the future, but it seems like they’ve finally opted to be the icon for the legions of bands that desperately try to be the link between modern metal and accessible melodic rock music. This is a catchy but badly disjointed album, dragged down by an uninteresting vocal performance and an over-reliance on hooks instead of competent songwriting to keep the listener’s attention.

I don’t despise the music here for being “easy to listen”, but even then, there is a difference between competent and pedestrian. The Swedish quintet, unfortunately, still lacks the ability/vision to distinguish both and ends up stranded in a line between them.

Highlights; A New Dawn, The Puzzle, and the chorus of the title track.