Straight off the bat, this album reminded me of why I put on an In Flames album, it has all the right ingredients, heavy, diverse, bouncy, and catchy as hell, this is In Flames in true fashion. You know when you hear a track and you get that hit of nostalgia, remembering the first time you put them on and the reasons why you liked them in the first place? This is what I felt when I put this on, welcome to Forgone.
In Flames have now been around the scene for 30 odd years, I can only imagine what kind of pressure or strain that can put on creativity. There is nothing new here from them, it’s brilliantly performed riffage just like their previous albums but the biggest stand out is that it has a different energy to it. You know when you hear a track, and it just takes you back to being a teenager or whenever you first heard a band and you get that excitement? That’s what I got when listening to this. This is album number 14 for In Flames and I was just excited for this release as I was back when Come Clarity was released in 2006, and that was only from hearing the singles.
The album opener, The Beginning Of All Things That Will End, is incredible, I’ve always enjoyed their acoustic pieces and melodies, it was something different they used to do on older albums and they still do the dual guitars and melodies so elegantly, and it’ s only going to get better from here on out with Chris Broderick on guitar, damn that guy can play! Word on the street is, that he wasn’t involved too much in the overall album writing process but did sprinkle his flavour on solo’s throughout the album.
One of the singles, State of Slow Decay with its Straight Outta Gothenburg sound, just hit home. It sounds like they wrote it in a jam session with At The Gates, it has that old school melo death vibe. Anders’ vocals are the perfect mix for each scenario as always, laying down that killer melo death growl and then straight into those big chorus cleans. Listening to Pure Light of Mind, this song is an incredible song of light vs dark, it is well written and catchy as hell, a perfect example of how good Anders vocals really are.
Meet your Maker, another one of the singles released before the album drop, sounds like it comes out of Come Clarity era In Flames, I loved it, fast paced, melodic with that classic chorus hook that makes a single great! The single choice for Forgone was brilliantly chosen, I was excited to hear the rest of the album just from the energy of these first couple of tracks released.
With their upcoming shows at Knotfest, I am really keen to see and hear how these tracks go live. I can imagine songs like The Great Deceiver really getting that crowd moving with the opening riff and then into the stomping verse riff. Its been a little while since In Flames were here to bring the goods and with this new album under their belt, it’s gonna be one hell of a show!