Review Summary: Everyone's favorite melodic metal band return with one of their finest releases to date
Lets face it, back in 2004 with "Soundtrack to Your Escape", its fair to say In Flames maybe took the whole "revolutionary" thing a bit too far. What they produced was an album that seemed too focused in trying to gain the approval of a mass audience rather than trying to satisfy the needs of the dedicated fan-base, an album designed to be able to be played on american rock radio. Thankfully, with "Come Clarity", the band have produced an album that will satisfy fans both sides of the pond, due to fantastic vocals, catchy yet heavy instrumentation and an overall consistency unseen from In Flames since "Clayman".
This album is not meant to be a radio pleaser by any means, and makes a damn loud statement about it by launching straight into the ferocious opener "Take This Life". Adopting a slightly "thrashier" approach, this is a track that finally shows critics that Daniel Svensson is one hell of a drummer, a fact he has hid very well in the four albums up until this point. Having said this, the whole album shows a real step-up in the bands game both instrumentally and lyrically, and this is perhaps made no clearer in possibly the albums best track, "Vacuum". Having a lurching behemoth of a main riff due to one of the best combo's of axemen in modern metal, Jesper Stromblad and Bjorn Gelotte, it leads into a killer chorus is always something In Flames do very well, but with this song I am going to be brave and say they have produced one of their best. The rest of the song does not disappoint either, featuring a great breakdown part in the middle with military drumming flowing into some eastern sounding lead guitar work. Magical Stuff.
Other songs worth taking note of to add to your I-Pod are "Leeches", which contains a great opening with some ferocious lyrical content, "Crawl Through Knives" that will please fans of the older sound due to it having guitars lifted straight from "Clayman" with some of Friden's most ear pleasing screaming to date, and "Reflect the Storm" that has the best quality composition overall on the album. To be honest, most of the album could be in this list, apart from three which bring me onto one of my problems with the record.
While this is most certainly one of In Flames most consistent attempts to date, the middle of the album unusually sounds poor, especially when you look back at In Flames history. The Middle of "Reroute to Remain" contains songs like "Cloud Connected", "Trigger" and "Dawn of a New Day", Colony has "Coerced Coexistance" and "Zombie Inc.", but this album has the generic "Dead End", "Scream" and "Come Clarity", all of which bring the album dangerously close to the "American metal" genre. Part of the reason why the aforementioned are so bad is that it is, yet again In Flames trying to sound like something they are not. "Scream" is their attempt at recreating something akin to Lamb of God's "Ruin" and it ultimately sounds forced and cliched, especially by Friden. "Dead Alone" is yet another collaboration with female guest vocals, and it just sounds boring, which is a shame because the instrumentation on here is actually rather good. And "Come Clarity" is simply American "radio rock" done badly, especially considering Ander's singing voice has never been considered as ground-breaking.
Having said this however, "Come Clarity" is an In Flames great through and through, mixing everything which made In Flames great in the past with everything that makes then so revolutionary in the present. Even with some annoying niggles that drop it from a "classic" status, this is still one heck of a listen and is so compelling, it had me fixed right from day one
Recommended Tracks:
1. Leeches
2. Reflect The Storm
3. Vacuum
4. Crawl Through Knives
