Speculation on what In Flames has been teasing has been running rampant lately, but a recent picture they posted was very intriguing.

This whole thing started in the beginning of March with this image - a surprisingly epic depiction of a Jester. There's this "Coming Soon" on the bottom.

I doubted it would be an album, however they have been in Sweden for a while and could be working on it secretly.

A couple of weeks later a second teaser image was posted. This image seemed to be a representation of the weird raven on Sounds of a Playground Fading. The hooded cloak, long beak/nose and the skeleton torso. A whole bunch of people thought it might be a music video of some form.

However, the third image was posted just a few days ago and was the most intriguing one of the three. This is clearly the Whoracle that appears on the album Whoracle.

So what could it be? The movie poster format of all three images makes me think this is some sort of DVD. A live DVD, or something different? I don't know. I'm hoping for a new album that is a throwback to the Whoracle days, but that's unlikely. I have a feeling that whatever it is, it's going to be revealed soon, and that's why I'm posting this thread - to discuss it when they finally pull the curtains up off this mystery project.

It will be their last recording visual or otherwise before they announce they will be the first awful band in history to be launched into a black hole.

They're not awful. Never were, never will be.

Maybe it's a teaser for some sort of documentary. Ya know, one of those docu's that talks about the beginnings of the band, how they have changed as a person/artist, how they deal with critics, what we can expect from them in the future, Anders talking about his modern metal manifesto..... I'm hoping for some news about a new album though. SOAPF was a huge disappointment after the suprisingly good ASOP, and I'm hoping (in vain) that they'll include a little more of ASOP on the next album. Hoping for a second Whoracle is even sillier, so settling for a little bit less seems like the right thing to do here.

Oh, the artwork is pretty good. Especially the third one... I seem to have a thing for women with a human skull/monster face for a head.

I'm totally indifferent about this. Yeah, "something big" it will be a big turd for sure!

...and I got a new sig!

When a band has "something big" it usually is crap.

Looks like a movie or video game poster, and I'm not sure which is the bigger turd of an idea.

You're a bunch of funny dudes...

Maybe they are re-recording their older songs? Could be a compilation too. I don't see why either would be that big of a deal though.

Comic book.

Why? Because it's a stupid idea and In Flames is a stupid band. Ergo, it's the most logical option.

You know I could actually see them going the lame Coheed And Cambria route with a comic book story that is continued on each release. Their recent music tends to appeal to the same delusional teenagers...

Just curious, I haven't heard A Sense of Purpose or whatever-the-hell their latest album is called. Despite the backlash amongst metalheads, I've actually enjoyed everything up to and including Come Clarity (though for some reason I could never get into Clayman). How do their latest two efforts compare in terms of sound and quality? And when I say compare, I mean compared to their post-Clayman efforts.

A Sense of Purpose is good... I'd even go asfar and say it's one of their overall better albums. Playground... is mediocre and a disapointment, but it's in no way awful.

My personal preferences post the Clayman cutoff point go towards Reroute and Purpose, and Soundtrack has its moments imo... if that helps...

I love how it's become so fashionable to claim that In Flames was NEVER a good band.

Of course, opinions will be opinons and no one's is superior or inferior to anyone else's and as a true OLD SCHOOL In Flames fan I absolutely LOATHE A Sense of Purpose and Sounds of a Playground Fading as much as anyone else, but it is just beyond me why ANYONE would consider Colony, Whoracle or The Jester Race to be terrible albums. If you go far enough you'll find people who will even try to say Subterranean/Lunar Strain wasn't metal LOL. I think half the people who say they hate IF as much as they do are telling the truth, and the other half just decided to throw the baby out with the bath water and even though they know damn well that their stuff prior to Clayman was decent material, they decided to convince themselves EVERYTHING they ever did sucked once the band sold out in order to not seem "un-metal"...

In fact, I like everything they released up until ASOP, even Soundtrack to Your Escape and Reroute to Remain, just much less than their other albums.

Anyways, the band is done and anything they put out from now on is going to suck.

IMO they went from one of the greatest metal bands ever, to one of the worst bands ever, but to claim that an album like the Jester Race sucked...well, fine if that's your opinion, just don't act like it's universally true or anything like that, because opinions are like assholes...

I was actually a big fan of Clayman, much less so of Soundtrack and especially Reroute...that latter of which I consider to be the worst of their "good" albums....but if you want the opinion of a critical In Flames fan who loved their old stuff.....I'd use this comparison.......Pre Clayman material = Fine Dining, Material on Clayman --Come Clarity = Guilty Pleasure but still tasty Diner Food, Post Come Clarity = The worst fast food you'll ever eat

Not sure if that makes sense but whatever lol.

The last two albums are pure alternative-pop-rock, they are not a metal band anymore and have not been since Come Clarity.

Haha I'll keep what you say in mind regarding ASOP and STYE, but I'll still give them a listen for myself . Also, I agree wholeheartedly with everything else that you've said.

I used to listen to their albums till (including) Clayman BUT this afternoon I listened to Cloud Connected on a friend's car and it was HORRENDOUS! Same as their Hellfest 2008 show (so, I didn't care for the 2011 one). RIP In Flames.
P.S:


One of the greatest ever?!? No.

Regarding the teaser posters... that's some good looking artwork. I wouldn't mind seeing also the Colony statue and whatever that thing on A Sense of Purpose is done in that style, too...

I've only seen them live once, back at Gigantour in 2008. At the time I was only familiar with like three songs I believe: "Moonshield," "The Jester Race," and "Jotun." They pretty much played their post-Clayman stuff which, I remember, disappointed me greatly. I'm kicking myself now though, because apparently they played "Graveland" from TJR there as well, and I didn't even know it! I'd kill to see a live performance of that from the venue I saw them at, but I couldn't find it on YouTube.

I did not write that.

Yeah, I hated Cloud Connected also. Worst song off their most listenable of "bad" albums IMO.


By "one of the greatest ever" I meant "one of my favorite ever".

IMO I have never heard an overall better song than Jotun or Davids Disarm Their Goliaths, of ANY genre.

In Flames has just become the black sheep of the metal community.

It's gotten to the point where you can't even claim you were EVER an IF fan anymore without everyone attacking you and calling you a poser even if you have been listening to metal of every genre more than half your life and for almost 20 years like myself, and even the mods chime in with their hatred.

So be it, that's just the way it is.

Everyone likes what they like.

Bout all their is to say about it as far as I'm concerned.

Haha I don't even know how that happened. Fixed.

Jester Race and the Black as inheritance are great, I adored them when I was a teenager. Jesper had a great idea when he first started the band, unfortunately success diluted the band's formula and turned their music into whatever god awful pile of shit their newest stuff is. It took such a horrible toll on the poor fellow having to castrate his penchant for melody, just to write post-hardcore inspired Disturbed riffs for Anders' mallcore hard on that it drove him to drinking. The band are just digging themselves further into an already canyon deep crevice, they will be forever remembered for that god awful Cloud connected though.

SUCCESS AGAIN! GRRRRRR...

Also, again, you're covering all the bases there... post-hardcore, Disturbed, "mallcore" (hihi)...

Im not blaming them for their success, they just completely lost any sort of artistic power they had for their seminal album. That and there are a lot of idiots with poor taste that keep buying their shit

How dare those idiots buy music they enjoy... ! Appaling...

Something big, like working with Skrillex as the Anders' heroes Korn did?

Even when I liked Gothenburg melodeath, I didn't care as much for In Flames. Each album had a few songs that I really liked but most I didn't care for. And when you have a powerhouse band like Dark Tranquillity putting out quality album after quality album, you need to step up your game.

So needless to say, I'm not exactly anticipating whatever it is In Flames have planned right now.

Working with Skrillex would make In Flames sound mildly aggressive for once.

I have no idea what they're hinting at. My first guess would be a new album. A lot of people say In Flames where never a good band, but I dig Colony when I'm in the mood for super sugary lighthearted melodic stuff. Can't say I like anything else they've done, though.

Considering that IF was never an especially "agaggressive" sounding band (not even back in the 90s), I don't see why anyone would demand they should sound like that now...

Peroy, it seems like your only purpose on this board is to refute anyone's opinion with your own opinion in an increasingly annoying way.

As for the teasers, it's not like they're doing anything different. Just a marketing move.

Well, sorry if I'm not joining your little In Flames bashing circle, but I like that band (loved them even back in the day) and I'm not gonna stay quiet just because that's an unpopular stance to take regarding them...

It's really not about In Flames, you've been warned for something else yesterday anyway. It's about the way you post like Ozzy said.

Yeah, that guy really shouldn't have started that post off with calling other people idiots... I don't react well to such juvenile, pseudo-elitist snobbery...

The only guy I really respect in this band is Jesper (who is apparently not in the band anymore). The guy was the only member who seemed to stick by his roots as a death metal musician, and after quitting In Flames went on to re-form Cermonial Oath and start a new Stockholm death metal-revivalist band called The Resistance, and I've read interviews where he praises "Left Hand Path" as a masterpiece and whatnot.

I don't follow the later In Flames stuff ("Colony" was fucking great but the last album I payed attention to), but I do understand why the band doesn't play the old songs live, these days. The band members have said that it is because the older songs were recorded with three guitar tracks, but since there are only two guitarists in the band, it is harder for them to play it the way it is on the album, so they have to change stuff and essentially butcher the songs. This doesn't excuse the singer from doing his new style instead of the death growl that he actually did on those albums, but it does make sense that they would rather just leave the songs as is, rather than change them...

Those images looks great, and Whoracle is a decent album.

.....

Well, those are all the positive things I can say about this band. Honestly, the possibility of a video game/comic book sounds much more intriguing to me than any actual musical release by these guys.

Hopefully it's Anders getting launched into the sun, fingers crossed!

Artwork is nice. I'd prefer just to hear a clip or two, but that would obviously spoil the game of anticipation they're playing.

I like In Flames just fine though their best album was Lunar Strain cause Stanne just fucking destroys in the vocal department on that album. As fair as the teaser goes it probably just hype for another terrible release. My problem with the band these days though isn't so much the direction they went in, its the fact that they didn't bother changing their name to go with the fact that they aren't In Flames anymore.