In Flames - Soundtrack To Your Escape (2004) (Japan TFCK-87346)

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In Flames - Soundtrack To Your Escape (2004) (Japan TFCK-87346)

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This is In Flames' seventh album, and it's without a doubt among the most hated albums in all of metal.
Hell, this has an average 8% below Metallica's disgusting St.Anger right here on the Metal-Archives. I want to state right here that the hate that this album gets is vastly undeserved, since it's still metal, and it's very far from bullshit like Korn and Linkin Park, the mallcore/nu-metal bands that most reviewers compare Soundtrack To Your Escape (STYE) to.

The opening track, F(r)iend stats off quite well with some whispered female electronic vocals and a nice little riff. Good drumming too. Anders' opening vocals are allright…a few seconds later though they get annoying. Then the chorus starts. Anders screams Fiend over and over in a way that's so fucking shitty and irritating that it makes every other In Flames song ever done seem like the best ever. This is their worst song ever. It drags the rest of the album down so much I wouldn't be surprised that, without it, the average ratings by everyone would go up 20%. At least. Skip it or die.

The rest of the album is fortunately much, much better. The Quiet Place and Touch of Red are the supposedly "popular" tracks on here, as they've been chosen as the two singles and music videos. I'll be reviewing the clips too since I have the slipcase version with a DVD including the two clips. The Quiet Place is quite a strong track, it should have been the opener, there's no doubt about that. It's clip is actually very well done, especially the part that accompanies the opening riff, shaking the camera and making it seem generally quite heavy. The other single is Touch of Red, which is again quite a strong song, although not as good as The Quiet Place. My problem with this one is the clip. In Flames, you're fucking Swedish. That means, Anders, that you don't go around with a Hummer in Los Angeles, getting your car cleaned by a bunch of American girls with wet white shirts while while the rest of the band pretend to be Orange County bikers with their Harley's. And the Pitbull/Ipod scenes really, really make this seem like the most mallcore song ever. Could be a clip for a Tampa Death Metal band or maybe some retarded rappers, but In Flames…

The rest of the album is in my opinion quite good. Many songs really sound similar to each other to the limit of being considered filler, but even there they sound good. Nice riffs in most places, with some added electronic effects which really seem to make many metalheads shit themselves. Lyrically we're dealing with the standard In Flames crap about mostly psychotic stuff. Better avoid focusing on the lyrical content of this one.

So I say that this album is vastly underrated and the hate it receives is undeserved. However, even though I like it more than 90% of people out there I can't help but state that it's undoubtedly their worst full-length ever. The songs tend to blend in with each other, especially after Evil In A Closet.
The highlights on here include The Quiet Place, the aforementioned Evil In a Closet for sounding very light while he's screaming like a moron (in a good way) and My Sweet Shadow. This loses points because of the bland lyrics, the lack of originality and variation with many songs and especially the opener F(r)iend, the worst song ever done by this band. This doesn't deserve neither the hate it receives nor a rating above 79%. I just can't give this 80 or above. Approach this with an open mind.

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