Year: 2020
Total time: 22:05
Label: Nuclear Blast
I’m trying to think when was the last time a band re-recorded their old record (at least a piece of it) and the experiment was successful. The truth is that such a thing does not easily come to mind. Also, it is certain that we will all strain our minds to understand why this album has been released in general. Once again, it’s not easy to think about the reason that this happened at all.
This EP begins with the new instrumental “Themes and Variations in D-Minor”, which is a beautiful prelude that contains acoustic music with plenty of violin and a beautiful composition of classical music. The following tracks are the anthems “Only For The Weak”, “Bullet Ride”, “Pinball Map”, “Clayman”.
On the positive side, apart from the unexpectedly good starting instrumental, we can hear a faithful copy of the technical part. And about the positives of this record: that’s about it. The production does not offer anything new. It’s quite modern, to the extent that we can hear a lot of electronic pieces of music at several times. In essence, it simply removes the original spirit of the older masterpiece, to the point where it can be said that it has stolen the spirit of the original record. Listening to it, one can feel that something is missing and that is exactly it. The guitars are tuned higher, the sound feels very empty. In terms of voice, well. Anders Fridman has never been the best singer of his genre and this is something he should know (after all, Mikael Akerfeldt has stated many times that he does not even consider himself as a good singer). But now, it seems that he has evolved into a wanna be pop singer, who has overestimated his potential and in addition, he seems to be desecrating the old classical compositions by introducing pure vocals in places that does not suit them. In his screams, he sound like he’s trying to make a voice he just can’t
The mystery about why this release has been released remains. Some speak of a bandit grabber in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, some say they were pressured by their company. Anyway, this EP has no reason to exist, EXCEPT the nice instrumental. Hence the rating is…
Rating: 1/10
Editor: George K
Related Link: IN FLAMES – Official Page
