Come Clarity [SPECIAL EDITION]

In Flames

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 7, 2006)
• Original Release Date: February 7, 2006
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Special Edition
• Label: Ferret Records
• ASIN: B000E1XO8K
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,818 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

About the Artist
In Flames has been one of the leaders of the underground metal movement for over 10 years. With over 1,000,000 records sold worldwide and coming off a successful tour as part of OZZFEST 2005, where they shared the festival's main stage with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and others, the time is ripe for this Swedish quintet to continue their ascent. The band's recent success, as well as that of their counterparts -- including Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall and Lamb of God.

With the February 7th, 2006 North American release of Come Clarity, the band has chosen a new label in Ferret Music to not only serve their legions of fans, but to introduce them to a broader audience in heavy music. The follow-up to the band's 2004 album, Soundtrack to Your Escape, Come Clarity features In Flames most ambitious songwriting to date.

Striving to make music he loved, Jesper Strömblad formed In Flames with Johan Larsson and Glenn Ljungström in 1990. After recording a demo, the trio garnered their first record deal and began work on their debut album. Entitled Lunar Strain, the release quickly became an instant classic in underground circles. A licensing deal with Nuclear Blast Records soon followed, as did the addition of both Anders Friden on vocals and Björn Gelotte on drums. In Flames then went to work on recording Lunar Strain's follow-up, The Jester Race. The album was an immediate success and the band's profile continued to increase worldwide as did their rigorous touring schedule.

After the recording of 1997's Whoracle, Johan and Glenn decided to leave the band and both Peter Iwers (bass) and Niklas Engelin (guitar) stepped in. With the fresh line-up in place, In Flames hit the road with Dimmu Borgir for a very successful European tour. The album ultimately became known in the highly factional underground metal community as an important release not only for In Flames, but for the entire melodic death metal movement.

At the conclusion of the album's cycle, In Flames' lineup again changed and the band restructured considerably. Björn switched from drums to guitar and Daniel Svensson (SACRILIGE) joined on percussion. In 1999, the band released Colony. Excellent reactions to the album as well as increased touring the world over turned In Flames into one of the most popular metal acts on the planet. 2000's Clayman topped its predecessor and the band received international acclaim. The success of Clayman gave the band a chance to share stages with acts such as Slipknot, Metallica and Slayer. The first In Flames live album, The Tokyo Showdown, soon followed, giving a detailed insight into the band's live competence.

After touring the world twice over in support of Clayman, In Flames released their two most successful records to date, Reroute to Remain and Soundtrack to Your Escape in 2002 and 2004 respectively. The invitation to join the 2005 installment of OZZFEST as a main stage act solidified In Flames' place amongst modern day heavy music's elite and saw the band break new ground, converting scores of new fans over the course of the highly-publicized trek.

Now with the imminent release of Come Clarity, In Flames are ready to take North America by storm with their best album to date. The band will finally call the continent their second home by touring the continent for more than half of 2006, beginning with a headlining tour set to launch in January that will include support from well known acts Trivium, Devildriver and Zao. Come Clarity features thirteen explosive tracks, including the roll-out single and video, "Take this Life".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keep "ADVANCING", February 9, 2006

By	gaff - See all my reviews

You know, it never ceases to amaze me when people do not even know how to write a real review for a product. First of all, when you review a bands album you are suppose to give input on THAT ALBUM; not say it sucks because it is different from their last one or first one or whatever. Many In Flames fans have seemed to turn their back on the band after switching up their style really after Colony. You have to understand that musicians are artists and people. I am sure MAKING THE SAME ALBUM over and over again will get very boring to them, not to mention they would have to constantly be playing THE SAME SONGS than on tour. You cannot blame these guys for wanting to experiment with their sound and do different things. I love every album that they made from Lunar Strain to this latest release. Each one has something different about it and they all are great metal albums. Anders sounds nothing like Davis from Korn, stop being haters.

On a side note, for all the people that really hated Soundtrack to Your Escape and called it to dumbed down or simple songs please watch them perform the whole album on their Used and Abused DVD. There is really nothing simple about that album when you watch them do it live and calling them Nu Metal is simply retarded. Come Clarity is a great mix of their older work and their newer. My personal favorite would be Our Infinite Struggle and Take this Life. I hope they keep making albums like this and the fans smarten up and realize bands do what they have to do to survive in a cut throat industry.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Come Clarity, February 16, 2006

By	D. Bridglal "Metal Lordess" (England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well here we are. The 8th studio album from the highly acclaimed Melodic Death metal band, In Flames is out. However as most fans agree, the last two albums have been somewhat disappointing. Especially Soundtrack To Your Escape, with the lack of proper solos and Anders screaming vocals, to name a few problems. (Some have even gone so far to call them nu-metal, which is absolutely absurd, because nu-metal isn't even real metal - it's alternative metal with hip-hop/rap influences). So In Flames have brought a new album out, with "more guitar solos" and is "more upbeat." But the question still remains...are they the old In Flames, or the new? To be honest they've sort of combined the two sounds, as Anders described this album as a `best of In Flames.'

They are some strong moments in the album but also some weak. Firstly, when I think of the older In Flames, I think of well-constructed, highly melodic songs, such as Colony, Jotun, etc. Basically everything from the Jester Race to the Clayman era. These new songs don't really sound like that anymore. The harmonics between the guitars are not so strong, and don't interlock in a decent melody to remind me of the `Food for the Gods' music. On the whole the songs in the past were more epic, majestic and out of this world. Come Clarity presents a little more modernized songs. Secondly Anders voice hasn't really improved since STYE. It's not a proper death growl, unlike the other albums. It's more like a constrained scream. I'm not saying death screams aren't good, but they don't fit with In Flames' style. For example, Alexi Laiho has a high-pitched GROWL that goes well with Children of Bodom's music but Anders' SCREAM is too forced. Thirdly, some of the drumming gets out of control. Instead of the old blast beats, it's just a pounding overlay of noise. This can be felt most prominently in "Take this life", which also features Anders appalling screams. However a great solo slightly redeems the song.

Don't worry though. There are plenty of good aspects in the album: I'm only fussy because I'm a huge fan of their older stuff, and people who like both new and old, tend to agree their older material is more superficial and easily surpasses RTR and STYE. "Leeches" is a monster of a track. Only 2.55 minutes long, it bursts with energy the whole way through, including the 38-second solo. In has almost an Industrial sound to it, and a very catchy beat. "Reflect the storm" has the old In Flames classic style (albeit Anders voice).

Another good thing is that Anders clean vocals have definitely improved. On STYE his voice sounded strangled, but they are much better now. "Come Clarity" is a shocker. It sounds nothing like a melodic death metal song, but a slow but heavy power metal song. There is beautiful clean vocals, with Anders singing "I want you to lead me, take me somewhere, just don't want to live, in a dream one more day." This could hardly be called a `melodic DEATH metal song.' Especially with the lyrics.

"Pacing Death's Trail" has a very catchy beat, and is exactly like the old In Flames, lyrics, music, drumming and everything. Anders voice goes pretty well with this song.

"Crawl through knives", "Vacuum" "Versus Terminus" and "Our Infinite Struggle" all have `death growls/(screams)' for the verses but clean singing for their chorus.

An interesting song is "Dead End" which features the female vocals of Lisa Miskovsky. It fits rather well with the music, and chorus (clean singing by Anders), and contrasts vividly with the death screams.

A song to be wary of is "Scream." This is rubbish for In Flames' standards. In fact a mediocre band should be ashamed of producing such nonsense. Basically as far as the music goes think: Linkin Park. A cruel comparison, but when hearing the chorus it's exactly what it sounds like. Obviously it's a lot heavier, but it's just an embarrassment. The lyrics go like "I say scream, you scream. Scream, we scream but no one listens", with Anders literally screaming the words. Gah. Avoid at all costs. The song isn't even structured well; it's boring and annoying.

"Your bedtime story is scaring everyone" is a slow atmospheric long song to close the album. It's slightly pointless though. You get 3.45 minutes of scuffling noises, with a chord here and there, then Anders voice suddenly booms out and ends at 4.30 leaving some more scuffling noises.

In a nutshell: Anders clean singing voice is great; his growling is no longer a proper growl but a bark; Jesper and Bjorn play well, but they don't harmonise enough (except for a few old-sounding songs like "Dead end", which has the Godly harmonies); the bass is good, but the guitars cover the sound sometimes; and Daniel's drumming is good (epecially in "reflect the storm", but in some songs ("Take this life" and "scream") there's an excess of pounding instead of the well crafted blast bleats.

Now this may seem like a harsh review, but considering In Flames are my favourite band, I have very high expectations of them, and this is a review mainly to old-school fans. For a random band, this album would probably get 5 stars. To new fans of In Flames or melodic death metal, I'd advise you to get the first 5 albums first!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect release for In Flames at this point in their career, February 18, 2006

By	ohnjayjdp "ohnjayjdp" (Columbus, IN United States) - See all my reviews

"Come Clarity" by In Flames is being billed by some critics as a return to original form, but that couldn't be further from the truth. As one reviewer very accurately pointed out, In Flames is one of the very few metal bands that can alter their sound successfully (for the most parts) with every release. The sound on "Come Clarity" could be described as more straighforward metal, and for the most part this CD is their heaviest in a long time. I'm not going to go so far as to say that this is their best album; for me, everything really came together for In Flames on "Clayman". However, few fans of this album would disagree that "Come Clarity" is their best since that CD.

Regarding the songs, there are many good ones here. "Take This Life" is a very powerful opener, but it really just sets the stage for the rest of the album. "Leeches" and "Reflect The Storm" slow down the pace a little but are just as heavy, although I must say that the clean vocals on the chorus of "Reflect The Storm" didn't appeal to me at first.

"Dead End", which utilizes vocals by Lisa Miskovsky paced by Anders' screams, is really one of the most interesting songs on this album. Normally I dislike extensive female vocals in heavy songs (Arch Enemy just plain sounds weird). However, it really works on "Dead End", and the vocals combined with the speed and heaviness of the song make it very memorable.

"Scream" and "Vacuum" aren't the best In Flames songs, but they're not as bad as some reviewers have indicated. In fact, "Scream" is probably the heaviest song on the album.

Having said all of that, I would consider the stretch from "Pacing Death's Trail" to "Vanishing Light" to be my favorite part of "Come Clarity". All of these songs are very good, with "Crawl Through Knives" at the top.

Regarding guitar work, its much more solid on "Come Clarity" than on recent releases. You will find some very good solos as well as dual guitar harmonies that In Flames used to be know for (and do extremely well, mind you). Regarding the guitar harmonies, I'm not sure why more current bands don't use this as it can really expand the complexity and power of a song.

This is a great release by In Flames. I'm not saying that STYE an RTR were all that bad, but "Come Clarity" is their best in awhile.