Reroute to Remain

A lot has been written about Reroute to Remain – In Flames’ infamous sixth full-length album, where the Swedish melodeath band gave in to the tempting call of the American alt-metal/metalcore sirens, greatly revolutionizing their sound. Old-time fans of the band viewed it as an irredeemable betrayal, and many stopped following the band after this record. On the other hand, In Flames have not looked back ever since, also because the new formula brought them considerable commercial success over the years. As a matter of fact, In Flames were not the only band in the Scandinavian death metal scene in those years who experimented with American influences. And while I cannot say I am a huge fan of the approach, it’s hard to deny that Reroute to Remain largely succeeds in what it set out to accomplish.

The songwriting strives to strike a balance between classic Gothenburg melodeath and aesthetics borrowed from the aforementioned American metal scene, with additional sprinkles of pop and electronica. It is not an easy feat – and the blending is not always masterful. In particular, the interjections of Maidenian guitar melodies at times feel somewhat forced, almost as if they were an obligatory sonic embellishment the band stubbornly decided to hold on to despite the new musical direction. Partly, this impression is due to the fact that the songs’ arrangements are kept fairly simple and stripped-down in most other respects, so that the sudden bursts of melodic activity feel slightly out of place. In fact, Svensson’s furious assault of the drumkit constitutes perhaps the most remarkable piece of musicianship of the entire album, within otherwise streamlined sonic textures where the down-tuned guitars unobtrusively chug away their essential riffs, leaving ample space for the vocals to fill in.

Anders Fridén, however, struggles somewhat to rise to the challenge – which is the most obvious weak point of the whole record. His cleans feel particularly weak and insecure, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the ample use of vocal effects and the low positioning of the vocals in the mix, were post-production attempts to mitigate Fridén’s tentative delivery. His limited range and power may also be the reason why the vocal melodies are kept for the most part simple and unchallenging. While this is not necessarily out of place in the context of the album’s stripped-down aesthetics, it does contribute to a sense of monotony that almost inevitably sets in when I listen to this record.

It’s not entirely Fridén’s fault, though, because I cannot help and feel that In Flames could have done a better job at pruning down the tracklist to a more compact and effective format. Nearly all songs here seem have a sort of sonic doppelganger – exploring similar atmospheres, with similar tempos and melodies (“Drifter” and “Egonomic”; “Dawn of a New Day” and “Metaphor”; “Reroute to Remain” and “Dark Signs”; “Cloud Connected” and “Dismiss the Cynics”). Sometimes, I muse that Reroute to Remain would be a much successful record if it would have contained “7 Songs of Conscious Insanity”, rather than 14. That would have allowed the band to focus more concisely on the best cuts of the album, like “Reroute to Remain”, “Cloud Connected”, “Minus” or “Free Fall”, all providing a satisfying combination of metallic punch and simple but effective melodic hooks.

Overall, Reroute to Remain represent a milestone in In Flames career and discography and as such constitutes mandatory listening material for those interested in understanding the band’s musical trajectory. It may not be to everyone’s liking, but it is hard to deny the bold step the Swedes took with this album.

I think it’s safe to say that no one likes it when one of their favorite metal bands changes their sound in order to appeal to a wider, more mainstream audience. Metallica infamously did this on the “black album” causing many other thrash metal bands (Megadeth, Anthrax etc.) to follow suit and release material that was controversial to put it mildly. What In Flames did on Reroute To Remain and the albums to follow is essentially the 2000’s equivalent of this, with the main difference being that In Flames were following the trends of the time rather than setting new ones. Like with Metallica’s black album and the far more heavily criticized follow ups, Load and Reload, old fans of In Flames were completely sideswiped by the sudden stylistic changes that the band undertook here on Reroute To Remain and the album has been bashed because of it ever since. However, ever since the album's release in 2002, many fans of In Flames have actually warmed up to this album (and era of the band in general) now that all of the hype surrounding its initial release almost 19 years ago has died down. With that being said, I personally believe that Reroute To Remain is yet another one of In Flames’ underrated efforts.

One of the main benefits of being new to bands (or metal genres in general) is that any biases or preconceived notions of what bands “should” sound like are almost completely absent. This album came out when I was 2 years old, so when I got into this band around the age of 16 I was not caught off guard by the band's change in sound. It was already an established fact that In Flames was no longer a melodic death metal band by that point and, because of that, there was no room for me to get mad about this era existing. That was just how it was. Due to this, I listened to this album (and their other albums) on their own terms, without expecting Colony or The Jester Race even though those were the albums I started with. To be perfectly honest, I initially did not like Reroute To Remain, but after a few listens I warmed up to it and have been jamming ever since.

Contrary to what angry old fans may tell you, the music on Reroute To Remain is not “nu-metal” nor is it the kind of stuff you are going to hear when you turn on your local modern rock radio station. Reroute To Remain is a melodic death/groove metal album with alternative inspired choruses and keyboards. With that being said, the music on Reroute To Remain is probably the most aggressive this band has sounded since Lunar Strain outside of the catchy alternative parts. Examples of this include songs like “Egonomic” and “Transparent”, the latter of which actually has a blast beat section, which is not something that happens on the band’s earlier material. These songs and most of the album in general, contain fast riffs and drumming along with harsh, screamed vocals. Aside from this, the album also has a lot of the melodeath influence from the band’s previous albums present, taking form in the melodic guitar riffs and leads that can be heard in songs like “Trigger” and “Dark Signs”. In general the music on the album is pretty well executed and the alternative influenced choruses on songs like “Trigger” and “System” are extremely catchy and memorable. While there are a few tracks on the album that aren’t as memorable as the others, overall I would say that Reroute To Remain is a pretty consistent listen.

With all that being said, this is by no means a perfect album. One of the biggest problems here is that the actual production on the album is straight up weird. The drums, while not a huge issue, sound pretty loud and overproduced and there are a lot of unnecessary vocal effects on Anders Friden’s harsh vocals. The best way I can describe it is that his vocals sound distorted and it doesn’t sound good at all. I assume that this was done to make the album sound “edgier” or something to appeal to the scene kids, but it really just sounds bad. Aside from that, the rest of the production sounds fine for the most part.

As for the performances themselves, the band do a pretty good job here overall. Obviously, all the vocals on the album are handled by Anders Friden and, aside from the bad production, his vocals sound about the same as they did on Clayman. Most of the vocals here are raspy shrieks in the same vein, but there is a larger emphasis here on clean singing. Previous In Flames releases sort of toyed with this, but the band had not embraced it to this degree. These clean vocals are mostly heard on the choruses to the songs and then the two acoustic tracks on the album. While he's definitely not the most talented singer in the world, I personally have always felt that Friedens vocals fit the band well on most of their material. As for the other band members, Jesper Stromblad and Bjorn Gelotte play lots of killer riffs and guitar leads here that are bound to get stuck in the listeners head after a few listens. The guitar work on the album isn’t as well done as it was on the band’s previous albums (they did go commercial after all), but it's still great stuff. As for the drumming, Daniel Svensson plays on this album and also does a pretty good job. There is a lot of double bass work and fast, thrashy drumming throughout. Lastly, Peter Iwers plays bass on this album and, while you can hear it at some points, he plays nothing noteworthy.

Overall, Reroute To Remain is a pretty good album. While I can understand that metal purists and people who hate anything mainstream will dislike this, I feel that a lot of the hate surrounding the middle era of this band is unwarranted. There is a lot to like about albums like Reroute To Remain and if you leave this website and head on over to one where albums are rated by users, you’ll come to find that this era of the band isn’t really poorly rated in general. Reroute To Remain is by no means mandatory listening, but if you are an open minded fan of this band or prefer more accessible types of metal music, Reroute To Remain is worth checking out.

Highlights:
"Trigger"
"Egonomic"
"Transparent"
"Drifter"

Original Review: 14 March, 2020 (I've since posted an updated retrospective to elaborate on some things I meant previously and how my view has changed since first reviewing this. Do read that after this first look at the album.)

Anybody who's listened to In Flames has heard of this album. It not only broke the band into the mainstream worldwide, particularly America, it also marked a radical shift in sound from melodic death metal to alternative metal/metalcore. That's all the introduction that this album needs.

The guitarwork no longer has different, yet harmonized leads. Bjorn plays the lead guitar, Jesper plays the rhythm guitar. It's a change that was made to make playing live on stage easier. While that's great, the harmonized leads were a great piece of In Flames' musicianship and sound, and that wouldn't be brought back as a key element until "Come Clarity". Even then, the second guitar acted as the rhythm guitar, making the whole thing essentially the same. The drumwork and bass on this album remain basically unchanged, and I'm happy with that.

The other big change in this album is the vocals. Anders' growls from "The Jester Race" to "Clayman" (In which it was wearing thin and transitioning to what we have here) have become higher screams. They sound good sometimes, but most of the time they're not great. It really depends on the sound. He wouldn't quite have incredible screams until "Come Clarity". His clean vocals are now a major part of many songs, and they're also pretty hit or miss. On songs like Free Fall and Metaphor, they sound nice and carry the melody competently. In other songs like the title track and Dawn of a New Day, they're monotone and dull. They drag the songs down.

Worse yet, those two songs are quite boring anyway. Unfortunately, "Reroute to Remain" doesn't start off on a great foot. An opening track is the listener's first taste of an album, and the title track might just be In Flames' weakest opener yet. Dawn of a New Day is also slow, and it drags out. This would be fine if they did something to change things up a bit or to inject some life into it, but it's nearly four minutes of monotony.

Songs like Transparent and Free Fall, meanwhile, are the best cuts from the album. The bass in Transparent is incredible, along with everything else. The riff in Transparent, while not exactly that technical, is still a joy to hear. Free Fall, meanwhile, should have been the album's third single. It's a shame that the song is pretty much forgotten even by fans because it's the best song on the album bar none.

The two singles we got are Trigger and Cloud Connected. Most people are split on these two, and it's easy to see why. Trigger is more traditional for In Flames in terms of sound, while Cloud Connected has a synth that, while nice sounding, is a bit too forward in the mix. In terms of structure, they're both quite similar, and the same can be said for the meaning of the lyrics. There really isn't too much to be said about either of them that hasn't been said by everyone else. To me, they're both two of the better songs from Reroute to Remain that are rightfully loved by many of In Flames' fans, though I completely understand why some people hate either one or both of them.

"Reroute to Remain" has a strange, yet understandably mixed reputation for good reason. It's a welcome change that was executed... Decently. Some songs stack up to the rest of In Flames' discography while others are towards the bottom of the catalog. Unfortunately, the wonder of listening to the album's mostly worn off for me. Three years ago, I would've given this an 80%, but many of the tracks are simply middling in terms of quality compared to the rest of In Flames' works. Although I despise "Battles", that album's always a... Well, it's a trip to listen to. The album isn't bad, it's not even so average it's bad. It has some good tracks, it has some shit tracks, and the rest, while they sound pretty good in the moment, just come and go, even if they aren't quite filler. In Flames changed, and that's okay, but they just hadn't found their footing quite yet here. It wouldn't be until 2006's "Come Clarity" that they would find a level of cohesiveness that would be a home run- At least for me, anyway. At the time of its release, yeah, it would've been In Flames' weakest outing, but we've seen both better and worse come from them since then. I've given it some praises, I've given it some shit, but for reasons that I can't quite explain as well as I'd like, I have to rate it this low. I want to love this album more than I do, but it's something that's just the middle of the pack at best. There's diversity here, but the album's overall sound doesn't blow me away, save for a few songs. Although I've said quite a bit here, there isn't much to get across. It'll sound pretty good in the moment, but in the end, it'll just come and go.

Tracks To Recommend: Free Fall, Transparent, Cloud Connected, Metaphor (I didn't speak about this song much, but it's beautiful to me. You might disagree though, so it's better that you listen to it yourself instead of taking my word for it.)
Tracks To Avoid: Reroute to Remain, Dawn of a New Day, System (I have mixed feelings about the track.), Egonomic (Filler, but it's fast and short.)

Updated Retrospective: 16 March, 2022

It's been a while since I've taken a look at this album, and part of me wonders if there's any good reason to comb this album over again. However, I listened to Reroute from front to back just last night, and considering that my reviews in the past were a bit rough around the edges and that my ears are much keener now that I've looked into even more music and have even dabbled into working on some, I believe it's worth seeing how my view of the album has changed. I'll try to keep this brief, since I'm not going to delete anything from the original version and it's wordy enough as is.

The correct myself a bit on the drums and bass: Holy shit, the drums sounds fantastic here. They pack a significant punch (This might be one of the best sounding snares or kits overall that I've ever heard), and they do a ton for the album for me. Similarly, the bass is rather thick, and it's up a surprising amount in the mix. Mind you, it's more audible in some songs (Most notably Transparent) than others, but even in the songs where I don't hear it so much, it's still very much there, and I can appreciate that. I should also mention that I've come around quite a bit to Anders' clean vocals in most instances on this album, even if they're pretty terrible objectively.

Funnily enough, I've come around a bit to some of the songs I didn't care for on my last visit. The title track is easily the weakest opener in all of In Flames' discography by a long shot, but I actually think it works really well in the context of this album and the rest of the songs. "System" is also a really wonderful, sort of curveball song like "Dead Alone" from the subsequent album. Unlike "Dead Alone", "System" doesn't change up the actual structure so much as it goes in a completely different direction and pacing in every part of the song. While that's something that's rather easy to fuck up, I think they actually pull it off well here. "Dawn of a New Day" is a song that is a bit too repetitive, but I actually like it a lot more than I used to. I just think it's too long for its own good- Particularly with the final chorus.

That being said, certain songs are rather weak. I have no idea how I neglected to mention "Black and White" last time, as it's not only the weakest song of Reroute, it's probably In Flames' weakest closing track. This track doesn't come together in the least in any way, even if I get what they were going for. Unfortunately, interesting intentions can't carry a song if the execution isn't interesting in the least. I've listened to this album six times overall- Three or four times back in high school, and two or three since then, and this song has never done a goddamn thing for me. Seriously, I ended up forgetting about it when I first wrote this review. That's kinda fucked up. Anyways, I think it's the vocals and lyrics in "Egonomic" that bring it down. The music is actually some classic In Flames goodness that is rather fast and energetic, but... The chorus simply doesn't carry the intensity, even if the pace is there. I also used to think that "Drifter" was some underrated gem back in high school, but... No, not even close. The guitarwork especially is boring as fuck.

In fact, that brings me to my biggest problem with this album: So many songs are in desperate need of better guitarwork (Particularly in the verses). I hate to concede this, since In Flames is still my favorite band of all, but I'd argue that leading up to this point, over half of their songs didn't have real riffs, they simply had incredible lead melodies courtesy of Jesper. But honestly, I'd argue that those incredible leads not only sufficed, but made In Flames a bit of a different beast compared to Dark Tranquillity and At the Gates in those early years. They truly followed that mantra of mixing the melodies of Iron Maiden with the brutality of death metal. In addition to that, the rhythm sections were still great. Reroute to Remain occasionally has some fantastic leads or incredibly heavy riffs, but those are scarce and are usually relegated to non-verse sections. What do we have in their place? Chugging, and lots of it. Mind you, I'm not opposed to chugging if it's done well and has some nice leads on top of it. I think that would've done a ton for this album. Either that, or just have better riffs. It's absolutely baffling to me because some songs don't have this issue, and most songs at least have some nice lead melodies in the choruses. I also need to mention that some songs have some solos/breakdowns (Ex. "Dismiss the Cynics") that don't last nearly long enough, particularly clean guitar melodies. They sound really good, but they never go on for long enough to make any sort of impact, and so many songs just don't stick with me. There's good reason that so many songs here just don't end up being quite as popular or iconic within the fanbase. Every time I listen to the album, I generally think "Wow, I love the majority of these songs, these are all fucking awesome", but not even two days later, I struggle to remember any aside from the four I recommended (And "Trigger"). They need something to elevate them, as I think there are some quality songs here.

But I think that's what brings me to this album's greatest strength. With most albums, the magic sort of wears off after the third or fourth listen. It's still great stuff, but I tend to just stick with my favorite songs. While I tend to just stick with my favorite songs here, every listen to Reroute to Remain retains that magic of the first listen because, frankly speaking, a ton of the songs are sleeper hits that I get really into on each listen. Hell, part of me wants to recommend those songs instead since they never quite get their due. I'd love to talk about the rest of the songs I rather enjoyed, but I'd rather not end up doing a track by track review. I think I'm already toeing the line there, and I'm not even sure that doing an update'll go through here or not. The middle stretch of the album in particular is a wonderful listening experience for me.

That being said, I feel like this album is a hard sell. I don't blame old fans both back in 2002 or during 2022 for feeling burned by this, even if I'd argue that Clayman was the transition to Reroute, not Reroute being the transition to everything else. Fans of the modern stuff (Not just the new stuff/stuff since Clayman) are probably going to be turned off by the vocals and lack of leads/riffs. It's the same with the alt metal crowd. Hell, I feel like the guitarwork is a bit too shallow at points for fans of old metalcore, but the vocals just won't grab any modern metalcore fans. I'm genuinely surprised that this album was really successful, and I can only attribute that to two things. 1. Nu metal was on its way out, metalcore was on its way in (At least in terms of mainstream popularity). I think this was just metal enough for metal fans at the time, yet also interesting enough for metalcore fans at the time. Whether the timing of this, STYE, and Come Clarity was simply luck or a stroke of genius, I'll never know. 2. There's something rather accessible about this album. I wouldn't say anything past "Trigger", "Cloud Connected", "Free Fall", and "Metaphor" are quite radio-friendly though. All of the album's songs are surprisingly catchy in the moment, but the singles especially. I don't think they have much staying power, but they're at least accessible and catchy, which I don't think is a bad thing. In Flames' music has always been like that, even back with The Jester Race and Subterranean. However, I think they absolutely perfected that with Colony and Clayman. Regardless, while I still feel like this is a rather middling album and one that I wouldn't change my rating on, it's one I'd still recommend. Nine times out of ten I wouldn't recommend it as someone's first In Flames album, but I still do recommend it at some point.

Well, so much for trying to be concise here. That didn't really go so well. I can only hope that the update for this review will be accepted, as I think it's really important to have my elaborated thoughts for anyone who may stumble upon this review while they ponder whether to listen to this album of not.

Also, let's please retroactively make the avoid list be "Drifter", "Egonomic", and "Black and White". Maybe "System" for its lack of approachability and "Dawn of a New Day" for still being a bit long and repetitive, but I enjoy those songs enough to leave them off the list.

No, this is nowhere in the ballpark of their star crop material. And sadly, it begins to slide downhill halfway through, but this is still talented songwriting, albeit more infectious and hook laden. I was going to give this album a 75%, but my younger self would smack the shit out of me. The first time I heard this, my naïve brain was blown away. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing trending in the mainstream (except for terrible songs like Cloud Connected), but the songwriting was just weird enough for me to get initially hooked.

It was always hilarious to me that Trigger and Cloud Connected were both singles, because Trigger shows exactly what went right with the album, whereas Cloud Connected shows exactly what went wrong. There's scarcely any actual death metal influence left. The closest thing is Drifter, and Transparent, which are two of my favorite tracks, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with Drifter if it was up to twice as fast, and if Transparent wasn't downtuned it would kind of suck. I have no idea why (must've been provoked by some sort of mind-altering substance) but I ordered the vinyl version of Reroute to Remain one day a few years ago. I almost always increased the speed for Drifter. I also only ever listened to the first side...

The mellowness doesn't bother me, because I hear good melodies often enough. It's not quite as melodically infectious and weird as an album like Whoracle, but I would still say it's weird enough. The general melodic theme to me, represents a melancholy sarcasm carrying half-upbeat tunes across a landscape of feeble optimism and realization of doom. The lyrics get a lot of messages across, which is an admirable aspect because after this album, the lyrics would fall into a trap of whining about relationship problems and other less abstract internal struggles. The lyrics are also not as pretty and poetic as earlier releases, but still pretty charismatic.

In summation, for a proto-metalcore pre-alt-metal sort of album that kind of became their "Black Album," it really is enjoyable. The good songs, in my humble opinion, make up for almost half of it being filler. Definitely not a good first listen, but I think it's their last good album. If you're just getting into In Flames, I'd just go in order. Start with Lunar Strain, and end at this one.

The change is so there, but if you take away expectations to the point to where musical direction is concerned and has been going, then you won't object to viewing this album in a negative connotation or have a false belief. Sure, it's different, it may not be totally melodic death metal, it does have its melodic death moments, but now it's meshed into 2 genres, maybe more. The guitars are still heavy, but the music/vocals rear into a different form. They do use more electronics and clean vocals, some to the extent to think this album is somewhat in the vein of metalcore but it isn't all like that.

What impressed me the most is the music, vocals, production and mixing as well as the lyrics. I can't see myself writing off this release to just be total crap because I wouldn't be being honest. If I thought it was just a sell-out album, I would've already stated that, but I'm not. So keep in tune to what I have to say here. Yes there is a lot less aggression, there are heavy guitars though they're not playing very fast, there are electronics, their approach is totally different and they basically don't want to keep playing what they've been playing since their founding in 1990. It's just a change.

Talking more about the music, it seems like their concept was more to the effect that they wanted to mesh 2 genres together, melodic death and groove metal. They also throw in some thrash sound into it showing their influences genuinely. This I think is good. What blew me away is obligatory, but it was the lyrics which made the music so much more desirable. They're using the words which weren't overly harsh to mesh with the guitars. The clean vocals are a reflection of just how they are now, more exclusively than past releases for sure.

I like every song on here. I think the rhythm guitars show their brutality even though they're not playing at fast tempos much. In Flames was never too big on making music that was overly fast, just melodic. The riffs here are thick, but they still have that melodic feel to them. They're expressing more art-work with this one and people kind of knew that the band's evolution was changing into a more laid back vibe to their songwriting than anything else. I don't think that their effort was just to go commercial with this one, I think it's just experimentation.

Definitely worth checking out on YouTube especially the title-track and "Cloud Connected." Don't just consider though what I think or others think of the album, consider what you think. I don't think that I'm totally off on this, I think that this album is a "B" to me. Maybe it's among some of the highest ratings on the album altogether, but it's just what I think. Think "melodic/groove/thrash/metalcore" and you'll have all of those styles in here. I like it more than their new album, but I like most of their releases anyway. That's not because they're In Flames, it's because they put out quality music.

As far as sellout albums go, this is pretty high calibre. It’s a lot easier to listen to polarizing albums like this with a breadth of distance. I can understand In Flames fans feeling betrayed at the time of this album’s release, but come on, it was 2002 and that’s just where popular metal was at during the turn of the century. In Flames aren’t trying to pass this sound off as something that it’s not, which might be a misconception for many people. This isn’t melodic death metal at all. This is slightly heavier Linkin Park with catchier choruses, and in some cases, less lame lyrics. It’s pretty shameless crap, to be sure, but it’s undeniably fun at the same time, if only for a sense of dumb novelty.

You could tell In Flames were flirting with some of these ideas on Clayman, but Reroute to Remain definitely kicks the synth pop-metal aesthetic to new regions. What’s remarkable is how successful this mindless approach to songwriting sometimes is, and yet In Flames have gone on to fuck it up over and over in subsequent years, and that’s not even to say it works all the time on this album. Take the song Trigger, which is one of the biggest hits on this album. It might as well be void of content other than a ridiculously infectious chorus.

Collect some stars to shine for you
Start today there are only a few…

Mmm, now doesn’t that just pull on your heartstrings like a Swedish boy band playing at your wedding? System is basically a typical fast In Flames song cast into a fairly generic metalcore mould. It’s not very memorable, but actually picks up steam in the second half when it slows down for another angry white boy chorus. Egonomic is in a similar style; fast for the sake of speed but unfortunately with even less substance. Cloud Connected is the blueprint for the nu-In Flames concert hit with its building synth intro and spoken-screamed verses and of course a chorus that would have hordes of prepubescents stage-rushing at Knotfest. Even Dawn of a new Day manages to prove itself worthwhile, despite being ‘that acoustic track’.

If albums like this ruin metal for you then it’s only because you let them. Aggressively berating this stuff is akin to a senile pensioner who spends his afternoons shouting “back in my day, video games were called books!” to kids who just ignore him anyway. What surprises me is the fact that In Flames squandered the simple formula they scored with on this album in later misfortunes such as A Sense of Purpose. How hard can it be to keep churning out hits like Cloud Connected? It’s true that I find it a bit grating to stomach this album in its entirety these days, but it was an important one for me in my formative years, and I’m definitely still able to find enjoyment in its shameless bombast.

Oh yeah, motherfuckers... Ten years have passed since In Flames released this album. Nevertheless, aside from very harsh criticism, this could've been a good album, if it wasn't for some things. You know, this is not your typical melodeath album, where some vocalist screams/growls over some Iron Maiden/Morbid Angel-influenced guitar riffs, while the bassist plays his part and the drummer keeps the rhythm while alternating between the savage death-metal drumming and the fine and expressive metal rhythms. This album screams from the fucking bottom of his lungs (if it really does have any?) :"Buy me stupid american consumer, who doesn't know shit about melodic death metal or metal in general!!!".

We all know that americans (like any other nation, where 70% of the population has a TV in the house) tend to embrace the sheep-like behavior. When everyone else buys some stupid and worthless product, that is very well promoted, they feel empty and buy the turd. This happened with the now "seminal" (in a bad way) "Reroute to Remain". There's just a little problem with this comparison... "Reroute to Remain" is not so stupid and worthless like some shitty over-promoted product. It actually became an epitome. An epitome of what a commercial album should sound like and how a metal band should approach the infamous goal of "gettin' rich". What is weird about this album is that the band didn't embrace some trend, like we see nowadays (ultra-good death metal bands turning deathcore... *cough* Cryptopsy *cough*), to do this thing...They actually created one! They are like the Metallica of melodic death metal. They helped create the genre with a ton of creativity and the guts to mix the sheer awesomness and melodic complexity of NWOBHM bands (mainly Iron Maiden) and folk tunes with the punishing brutality and slamming wildness of death metal. But some years after they said "Hey guys, I think we're pretty much tired of doing good melodic death albums and not being able to buy some fucking mansion on the West Coast with the money we get. I think we need to do something really awesome that the masses will buy". And that's how this LP was created.

Now let's go on with the music. Musically, every single song has a simple structure than goes like this: intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-some cheesy melodeath guitar lead-some fucking bridge-chorus-chorus-end. There are sometimes variations, but nevermind. They stopped playing with song structures, like they did before and this kind of building up a song resembles very much to rock-and-roll and pop song structures. This is not a bad thing, but it gets worn out quickly. The good thing is that they are not as fake as some bands, they can actually catch the pop-like atmosphere (I don't mean the pop that airs today on the radio, I mean real pop singers like Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston or to some extend Tina Turner) they desire and make it pleasant and enjoyable throughout the album.

The guitars are pretty nice, but filled with musical flaws. They have the desired catchiness, but tend to be boring after some time. Some solos or more leads would've solved this problem, but...they were to lazy and wanted the americans who know nothing about metal to actually swallow up this album with ease. The guitars pretty much create this pop atmosphere along with the vocals, but better songwriting should've done the trick better. The atmosphere is pretty enjoyable, but it could've been more pop (of course, without sounding like some Pierce The Veil or All Time Low pop-punk assholes). The guitar parts are muddy all the time, in terms of production. It's like the producer turned the gain-button very high. This creates some kind of wall of sound, that drowns the vocals and the bass sometimes. What I like about the production is that they didn't aim for a sterile, overproduced and robotic sound, but pretty much stuck to their old guitar tone and changed it to the place, where you can still recognize it as In Flames, but tell that there have been some modifications.

The drums are simplified. Blast beats are gone, fast doublebass is gone, death metal in general is gone in the drum department. The drummer employs sometimes a faster style of playing but these are short bursts that come and gone, so overall they stuck to the heavy metal/hard rock drumming. The bass...well is pretty OK, if you like your bassist to blindly follow what your rhythm guitarist plays. As I said, because of the muddy production it is most of the time drowned by the wall of highly-distorted guitars (Don't get me wrong, distorted guitars are the core of melodeath and of metal in general, but the production of this album makes them too loud and too distorted).

In the vocal department, there is a great change. Low, guttural growls are now history and their place was taken by high and raspy screams, which along with the decent clean vocals manage to be a mediocre addition to the band's sound and style. The cleans, not as high and gay as today's singers employ, are powerful and lyrical. The vocal melodies are catchy (of course...That's what they've been aiming for), but along with the lyrics get boring over time. The lyrics are pretty emotional and totally reflect the state of spirit of the one who wrote them, without ressembling to today's emo/-core lyrics, which are plagued with themes like this: "A 15-year-old angsty teenager is ditched by his girlfriend and whines the whole song, that the girl (or "stupid fucking whore" as he calls her) left him behind and fucked a real man." You got it!

Even though I wrote some pretty things and not so many bad things in this review, you might think why this opus doesn't have more than a 55% rating. I gave this mark, because I had to judge a melodeath band that put out a so-called melodeath album, which turned out to be more pop that metal. This shit is not melodic death metal anymore. It's somewhere between the pop, heavy, extreme metal border, thus shall not be called melodic death metal or death metal in general. If it was a metalcore band or a power metal band or even a black metal band putting out this album, then it would've been something else....but it isn't. If you like some softer kind of metal, this album is for you. If you are into death metal, melodeath or extreme metal in general, stay away from this.

For the sake of self-respect… no, nevermind, the band threw that out on the last album. This is where they had a toe in the doorway of the United States, and they weren’t leaving without stripping themselves of musical integrity to get in. My biggest complaint, summed up in that last sentence, is how fake this album sounds. Now the band created the ultimate phony sack of garbage with Soundtrack To Your Escape, but for a first volley, they knew just how synthetic they wanted to sound. Look no further if you want processed, non-critical, simplistic, absent-of-atmosphere dogshit (oh excuse me, I mean badly imitated modern rock).

Here’s one general problem off the bat. This is a digitized, amplified mess with no personality, but what’s the genre? It’s not melodic death (in fact, very little is outright melodic death), and certainly not flat out rock. It’s modern metal/rock that’s mainstream, but how can that be when Anders’ whiny, nasally screams have no appeal to them whatsoever? Non-extreme metal listeners would have to already be into harsher vocals (by rock standards) to get into this music. I know, because I was that kind of fan back in the day. Listening to this, I knew I loved whatever the instruments were doing (being loud), but I didn’t like the vocals at all. Except one thing – the clean vocals I could tolerate.

Bingo

Anders is powerless as a vocalist to begin with, but the mockery isn’t just in his “harsh vocals” anymore. His screams are pissed off “grrrrrs” at every start before he exhales with a childish replication of mutilated screams. Think of all those awful screamo vocalists (and I mean those emo / post-hardcore screamo singers), and then imagine a register lower – that’s what Anders sounds like. A lot of times they get buried under the instruments anyway, considering how noisy everything else is thanks to the loudness of the production. Anyway, the catch is this – Anders is like a really shitty Dragon Ball Z villain, in that he’s only useful for a limited number of episodes before his unique power is worth jack shit because everyone found a way to get around it. Anders and the band know that they have nothing to offer during anything other than the chorus, which is half of the textbook rule – ensure that the chorus is catchy as all hell. That’s where the band hopes you, as the listener, are sucked in. For a number of bands, even in metal, this is par for the course and the standard. However, for a band with absolutely no formula and devoid of character, this is digging a grave with bare hands.

Perfect example – “Trigger” – Jesus fuck, a music video even went along with this garbage.

This song screams factory-direct: factory-direct start-stop chugga-chugga riffs in the verse with maybe a few ounces of melodic death, Svensson continuing to look at those dollars raking under his drum stool, and roughly ten seconds of soloing trying to recapture what In Flames did on Clayman. The composition is already middling, with the verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure having nothing to offer, but the way it’s executed, ugh. Keep in mind that there are worse songs on this album, as expected, but this is the single, along with “Cloud Connected” – another assembly-line constructed filler. Anders, just like on every song here, is in a race to get to the chorus. No song gains anything with Anders’ screaming, but it’s the chorus that’s the jackpot, according to the band. That’s when Anders lets loose those awkward “eueueueugueuuegeueh” cleans that’s heavy on the accent. It’s not harmonic or very pleasant, for one, yet it’s used on every song (with “Metaphor” devoted fully to the clean singing).

Now that’s “Trigger”, but on the other songs it isn’t that much different. Some he uses whatever “atmosphere” the band scrounges up with the electronics like on the title track to sound cryptic, but it’s such an awkward voice. The aforementioned “Metaphor” is a fully clean track with these clean vocals, and misplaced between probably the most melodic death oriented track on the album (“Dark Signs” – essentially a carbon copy of “Cloud Connected”) and the chuggernaut “Black & White”. A few of these tracks would hurt, but fucking fourteen of them one after the other is a gauntlet. You would think with all the stuff padded into each song – electronics, chugging, the sneering screams, and the failing cleans – there would be enough to create some variety. Not exactly, as every song follows the same formula and nothing has any redeeming value to it. Take “Drifter” for instance, a short chugfest with another ounce of melodic death in it buried under the same riff heard on every song, as well as those screams during the verse and the cleans during the chorus. It has no personality – loud playing doesn’t mean energetic.

Svensson I still hold as the only member worth anything anymore. The man, even on this album, is playing with his gut as he attacks the kit with pummeling double bass. Obviously he doesn’t do anything very impressive, but with pointlessly loud music as this, all you could ask is that he shows a little hostility. That’s true, and the kit is very loud, but once more there’s no reason. There’s absolutely no point to anything being played here, and the second I shut this off I know I’ll be reinvigorated by something else.

This is a challenging album, and definitely not so in the most obvious of ways. Some albums are challenging to like, some are challenging to understand, and some are even challenging to hate if society deems it garbage and a few individuals disagree but still want to fit in. But this is an album that is challenging to dislike for the right reasons, and while many can properly point out the problems in the midst of a blinding rage, keeping one’s sense of proportionality is difficult. Even the most rabid of “The Jester Race” and “Lunar Strain” fans should keep in mind that buried under a lot of really unnecessary additives and overindulgent drama is actually a pretty decent album, but like with any elaborate cuisine in a given hybrid genre, too much of certain ingredients or a couple things that don’t belong can turn a tasty dish into a pile of disgusting mush.

Since the release of “Colony” and the addition of drummer Daniel Svensson, In Flames has played a hybrid of power metal and melodeath that is fairly similar to more keyboard oriented Finnish outfits like Children Of Bodom and Norther. They aren’t nearly as flashy and generally tend to rely more on guitar harmonies than atmospheric keyboards, but the spirit was basically the same, and “Reroute To Remain” still carries the same basic template insofar as the majority of the non-vocal parts go. It has been rightly pointed out that several of these songs contain fragments of ideas that were heard back in the 90s, most notably the principle guitar line on “Metaphor” which draws dangerously close to the intro of “Moonshield”. This song also has the misfortune of being covered with a really whinny clean vocal performance out of Anders Fridén, and throws out the climactic distorted sections in favor of a full out sappy ballad with a distant, droning violin line, and herein lays the area where this album runs into serious trouble.

The formula at work in this band’s repertoire has always been simplistic, barring perhaps the experimental tendencies of the pre-Fridén era, and things aren’t that much different here. The riff work is a bit further simplified, but still largely consonant and animated, and the rhythm section still maintains that fast paced power metal edge. The only critical flaw in this category is that Svensson’s snare and cymbal tracking is tending towards the popping and ringing characteristic more commonly heard in metalcore circles. But apart from this and maybe a few clunkers like “Transparent” and “System” being heavily groove oriented, almost to the point of being bad Pantera songs, there is little to be offended by here unless the material following “The Jester Race” really didn’t agree with you. Certain songs like “Trigger”, “Dismiss The Cynics” and “Dark Signs” are actually consistently good throughout, from an instrumental perspective, really accenting the melodic guitars and some decent keyboard additives, and could probably have made “Clayman” without greatly detracting from its overall quality.

The real folly comes into play when dealing with the vocal work, which while not all that more offensive to the ears than the semi-moaning spoken lines heard on “Clayman”, is presented in such a way that the continuity of the songs is thrown off. Perfectly good fast paced numbers like the title song “Reroute To Remain”, “Drifter” and “Egonomic” begin attacking the ears with the blazing goodness of a late 90s melodeath fest, but collapse into these horrid clean sung choruses that range from being happy hardcore rubbish to overt pop/punk with harsh, pseudo-death shouts along for the ride. When combined with an assortment of industrial tinged keyboard elements, a somewhat appealing stew all but morphs into pig slop. What makes things worse is that the instrumental sections have been slightly cut back to make more room for lyrics and vocals, the two areas where this band has always been weak, but here also serving to make the stylistic embellishments that have corrupted the sound all the more blatant.

It might be an act of unintentional conformity, but I am forced to agree with the popular sentiments of the old guard metal community on this one, this is a pretty bad album. However, fixing an album like this would require little more than dropping one or two songs and changing the vocals around, which is pretty simple in comparison to many bands who simply sound bad no matter who is performing the parts. There is no actual bad songwriting to speak of, just poor arranging and a really bad stylistic mix put on top of what is otherwise a fairly consistent Gothenburg version of power/melodeath. Bargain bin hunters might be encouraged to part with a couple of bucks for 2 or 3 songs that are minimally affected by Fridén’s gimp hardcore singing, but the words of the day here is “look elsewhere”, and I am happy to have done my part to spread the word.

Despite some rather far-fetched claims that In Flames went Nu Metal right after "Clayman", the band's album "Reroute to Remain", the first album of the band's post-melodic death metal period, is generally accepted as the best of this era. Far above the shitty "modern metal" sound of "Soundtrack to Your Escape", above the half-assed pseudo-comeback sound of "Come Clarity", and above the band's most recent, and trendiest, almost emo work on "A Sense of Purpose", the band apparantly didn't suck so fucking much on this album. If this is indeed true, then I have been living my life totally wrong.

This album contains all of the most basic elements of "melodic death metal". For instance, fast paced drums, a heavy rhythm section placed neatly under melodic leads, etc. Some of these songs are still pretty moshable, although not even close to the energy packed headbang-fests that manifested "Graveland", "Resin", and "Upon an Oaken Throne". However, there is alot of excess on this album which simply cannot be dismissed. The addition of cleanly sung choruses, always sanwiched between uninspired sections of modern melodic metal featuring Anders Friden screaming his head off is simply offensive, and the lyrical change from astronomy and philosophy to self-pity and depression is just ridiculous, and offensive. I can't understand why a band would dumb themselves down this way...

And here's my main problem with this album. It appears the band has "sold out", by replacing the intelligent and unique elements of their early albums by switching these elements with more modern and commercially acceptable ones. For instance, while older albums featured Anders performing at a variety of different tones and using deeper grunts and higher screams for emphasis (see: "Resin"), while sticking mostly to mid-ranged death growls, here he has erased any sort of variety in his vocals, focusing the entire album in a strained higher scream. However, these screams are totally annoying and don't inspire me at all. The clean singing, which was introduced on "Colony" (although used sparingly), has taken over the band's sound. Every single track features a cleanly sung chorus, many of which are very out of place. He actually sounds younger and far less manly than previously. Although it's cliche, these clean vocals range from KoRn inspired in some songs, to emo sounding in others. Yes, they are both present on the same album.

Almost all of these songs are genuinly bad, and a premonition of what was to come. Like "System", for instance. This track features an extremly simple "chugga-chugga" riff featuring two chords tagged at the end of the riff which give it a pseudo-melodic feel. Out of nowhere the band slow down into a power pop pre-chorus (no exagerration) before it blows up into a "metal" version of the same thing. This track is utterly terrible. Another example is "Transparent", which features a lazily thrown together opening nu metal riff, which is accompanied by souless blasting from the drums and screamed vocals. As usual, a cleanly sung chorus follows, this time featuring Anders using an effect on his voice to make it sound like he's singing into a walkie talkie. This is all followed by a lazily thrown together solo. See, the problem is that almost all of these songs start out with a cheesy, and extremly uninspired and unmemorable melodic death metal riff, usually featuring lots of chugging with only a couple notes tagged at the end giving off the melodic feel (as previously mentioned). While in the past the riffs and solos were the key ingredients to a song, here the riffs are just worthless throwaway riffs which all sound the same, with the choruses being the sole part which is memorable, and even those are generic and just scream FAIL.

The worst aspect of this album is definatly the "experimental" aspect, though. There are two acoustic tracks, "Dawn of a New Day" and "Metaphor", neither of which are very thought-provoking, although I suppose "Metaphor" provokes me to think "Hey, this fucking sucks!", so if that counts or not, I'll let you be the judge. Combined with this, the band have begun to add more "industrial" aspects to their sound, predominatly in "Cloud Connected" and "Free Fall". These two tracks show the band slowing down the overall pace of their songs to cater to the weak-minded masses, using more vocal effects, more keyboards, etc. Basically, the idea that the band that recorded "Clad in Shadows" would go on to record this, is just out of this world. There is absolutly no similarity in any way, shape, or form to the band's original sound. I honestly think "Free Fall" is the worst song on this disc.

I just really hate thinking that In Flames abandoned their tried-and-true, classic melodeath roots, for this shit. Literally, every single aspect of this album is a failure. Do not buy, or even consider buying this or anything post-"Clayman". I can't say if the rumors are true or false, as I have never listened intently to the band's later material, but from what I've heard here, how could they get any worse?

I've never been the biggest fan of In Flames. Forgive me for not fellating them for the most part of the late 90's when they were supposed to be the daughters of the metal community when just because they are Swedish means all attention should be focused towards them. I think there should be certian laws place in the said metal community that if one doesn't pay much attention to a certian band that is doing the right thing, don't ostricize him whenever he speaks his mind. God forbid a metal head should speak his mind under any reason other than fellatting a band in sheep-like manner.

With that said, when In Flames' "Reroute To Remain" came out I knew what to expect. I KNEW what the band sounded like before and I knew what to expect when I first purchased because I was reading a lot of mostly scathing, but a good percentage of decent reviews based on the album's change of pace. So I kept an open mind completely un-biased towards them and sat down to listen to it pretty thoroughly. Surprised to say I didn't find too much wrong with the album because I knew what In Flames was trying to do; take their Gothenburg sound and try to find a place snug-like next to Disturbed in an attempt to gain new fans.

Let's get to the musicians. Guitarists Jesper Strömblad and Björn Gelotte may not be "teH bEstEst eva!" but that's not to say they know what they are doing. They are completely highly-skilled guitarist who can easily perform riffs up there with the classics such as "...And Justice For All", "Bomber", or even "Fear, Emptiness, Despair", but albums that this certian LP cannot touch for the sole fact that a lot of songs where Jesper and Bjorn trying so hard to SOUND hard when they end up repeating a lot of un-necessary riffs that in turn only rise to the level of filler songs. Even the drummer and bassist(Daniel Svensson and Peter Iwers) whom I don't pay much attention to are providing the heavy bottom end to their well-constructed Swedish melodies when Jesper and Bjorn are completely on. It's just the lead singer Anders Fridén that brings the band down from FULLY realizing their potential. Even with his best performance on "The Jester Race", he lacked the gruffness and conviction to REALLY push that album over the edge. Here on "Reroute To Remains", it is apparent that he's taken a certian likeness to Korn due to his whiny fucking vocals. I mean there are parts where he stills sounds ok, but then other parts where I just want to smack him in the back of the head and ask him was he born without testosterone. But this is all due to the fact that it's more acceptable for front men of Metal bands to show more of their feminine side these days then say 15 years ago. Also there are some guest musicians on "Reroute To Remain" such as Örjan Örnkloo providing keyboards and synths that definitely give it it's catchy pop sensibilities and the amazing Fiol-Olof whom I'll discuss more later on.

Sound production and artwork is going to be obvious with In Flames. Squeaky clean sound and hi-glossy printed artwork. I mean they're not going to put out any album that has a balls-ripping raw sound like Morbid Saint or even something dirty and grimy like early 90's Ministry because they are European and they are soooo beyond that "basement sound". Whatever, fuck them. Keep on progressing with your Pop Rock productions and see where it gets you.

I wont go into a song-by-song review for many reasons. Mainly because with In Flames you know what to expect. The songs presented are half and half. Half are them are really good and very catchy while the other half ride between filler and just annoying. Here's the evidence;

Good: Title track, "Trigger", "Cloud Connected", "Metaphor", "Free Fall", "Dark Signs" and "Black And White" where we see what I refer to them as Disturbed going Swedish. In fact this is probably the best song Disturbed didn't write. It's still a good song nonetheless. This batch of songs shows In Flames do everything correctly when it comes to direction, groove, how well everything flows. General good songs. 5 to 10 points a piece.

Bad: "Dismiss The Cynics", "Transparent", "Dawn of A New Day", "Minus", and "Egonomic". Now that last song I mentioned is because it's one of those fast songs for the sake of being fucking fast and In Flames has to at least always put one or two fast songs on every album since they turned for the worst due to the fact that they still want be perceived as Gothernburg metal. Other reasons for a song might be put here is that the song doesn't know what the fuck it wants to be and this is mainly due to Anders wanting to try to sound serious and yet sounding whiny as fuck at the same time. Also we see more Korn/Disturbed riffs pop-up in places where they don't need to be. Regardless of them being bad I'll still the songs a point each for trying.

Ugly: "System". Fuck this shit. Anders is a whiny little bitch at times, but here I can imagine him standing in a Morrissey-like posture, staring at the ground all doe-eyed, cradling the microphone with his limp wrists trying to sound all "deep" and "emotional". Then we see In Flames going COUNTRY! Starts out with a nice little folk-like acoustic and then comes Anders' whiny fucking vocals again and....what the fuck.....country-inspired violins. Now after a few listens it doesn't sound completely annoying, where it goes more into a completely listenable break from 1:50 to 2:32 but it doesn't belong on a Metal album. Fiol-Olof is talented. She can go from folk-ish melodies to country twang to a more classical sound at the drop of a hat. But it doesn’t sit well on the album. Sorry. I live in the south and it's bad enough. No points. Sorry.

Well, bottom line is that I am in a generous mood considering that I pained myself to sit through the new Five Finger Dick Plower album so when comparing the two albums, this one sounds NOTHING like that in terms of sheer shittiness. It’s not that bad of an album folks. C minus grade.

In Flames were the first metal band I got into, and my first album by them was actually The Tokyo Showdown, the live album with pathetic sound quality but a fantastic setlist. Obviously since then I'm familiarised myself with all of their other material, yet I realised not long ago that I didn't actually own copies of Reroute To Remain or Soundtrack To Your Escape, the two albums that are constantly attacked for being 'mallcore', and other such insults to In Flames. Obviously I'd heard a good amount of songs from the two but now that I have the full album, I have to say it is not nearly as bad as everyone seems to think.

The first thing that will jump out at you when you pop this CD in is that there is a much heavier use of synthesiser and clean vocals in a lot of songs. I mean, In Flames have used keyboards since the very beginning, so I find it quite odd that people are complaining about this element. A vast majority of the keyboard use in this album is for soundscaping and atmospherics, rather than as a real key component of a song (which it has been in the past, remember 'Wayfaerer'?) and I find that it is used very effectively. Aside from a few intros and quieter sections, they are not massively noticable and listening to the whole album I never thought that they were emphasised too much or just not beneficial to the sound.

As for the vocals, I've never been a huge fan but I find no major problems with either Anders' clean vocals or his new style of screaming. The production of them in the studio is where the problem lies, they are very muffled and occasionally distorted and I think this is mostly down to the fact that Anders does not have a particularly strong voice. Sure, sometimes they're annoying but it's not difficult to ignore them. I think a lot of the best moments on the album are the choruses, where the clean vocals are almost always implemented.

That said, don't think there is no melody in the guitars. There always has been oodles of melody and harmony dripping from In Flames' guitars, and this album is no different. The only real difference is that a lot of the guitar parts are very rhythmic at the same time, rather than the previous formula where a lot of the time the guitars would be divided between one player playing the melody and another playing chords to provide backing. The riffs here are still incredibly melodic and the classic style of harmonies In Flames are known for is still there, but the addition of more rhythmic hooks (which are only used by sellout bands, obviously) spices up In Flames' sound.

I think that Daniel Svensson's drumming has improved with every In Flames album he's appeared on and with Reroute To Remain he's really brought some songs to life. While if you are listening casually, you will start to hear similar beats throughout, his performance is fantastic and some of his fills show his fantastic ear for what will fit with any particular piece of music. However, his bass drum is not nearly prominent enough, and this in turn plays down Peter Iwers' power on the record. His playing has never been at all noticable in any way behind his bandmates' thick guitar tone, which is sad. However, this problem is to be found in every In Flames recording, so it is no real reason to mark down Reroute To Remain.

The other main point of interest on the album is some of the more laid back tracks, such as 'Metaphor' and 'Dawn Of A New Day'. I think both of these are very interesting tracks which break a lot of new ground for In Flames, including some of the more 'classic' acoustic elements of mid 90's In Flames. I hope to hear more music like this from them in the future.

I find it quite odd that this is considered In Flames' 'sellout' album, because if you really believe they did sell out, Clayman is quite a similar album. I mean, a lot of songs on the album could fit right in on Clayman, and (to an extent) vice versa. All taken into consideration though, I think this is a good album. Not great, like The Jester Race or Colony, but certainly much, much better than what it is generally considered to be. It has a couple of stinkers (such as 'Cloud Connected' and 'Transparent') but songs like 'Trigger', 'Dawn Of A New Day' and the opening title track make Reroute To Remain an enjoyable album, worthy of the In Flames name.

In all fairness and as a preface, I will say that I am a rather large In Flames fan. Of course by this I mean all the previous albums leading up to this one had their fair time in my disk changer.

With that said, I think you'll understand that I am basing this album reveiw solely on the band's progression and experimentation, not on how good this album is compared to Clayman or even Whoracle.

The album starts off blandly with a small electronica synth intro then jumps forward into a nice riff and then everybody else begins to play. This song of course is the title track "Reroute to Remain". The production on this song and even the whole album is far too polished for my liking. Everything sounds so clean and pristene as opposed to the almost vicious pipeline of guitars I was used to when I would see their old stage shows. The drums have this odd way of sounding so far from what they are, such as the weird clicking sound their kick drum seems to have adopted. But aside from the production the way the songs are arranged is very cut and dry; verse / chorus / verse / breakdown / chorus. Well I think you get the point. The songs really are far too confined from what I was so used to before with the structure, it just gets far too narrow in scope and makes the songs seem a bit forced and not pre-meditated.

Standout tracks are far and few between, but why I gave this album a high score rests solely on the 4 tracks I felt were the best out of the album. Obviously "Trigger" comes to mind yet I felt it was a poor choice for a single and video. "Trigger" is a pretty good track with a fantastic grind feel to the guitars that gives it a sort of likening to a trash song. The lyrics are sort of bland and don't really go anywhere or hold any more meaning than the papers they were probably scrawled on. The chorus is where the song comes together. Other standouts include "Dawn of a New Day", a bit of a risk being the most mellow track on the album and being relaltively tame, yet what sells it is the vocal work by Anders Friden and the acoustic passages. I'd also throw "Egonomic" in there as well as "Black & White" the album closer.

After listening to the album for so many times I start to maybe see where the band had wanted to take this album, make it a bit of an experiment and go in a new direction. But after seeing this effort and their latest travesty, Come Clarity, I feel the band has gone in a horrible direction. This however is just my opinon and does not necessarily mean that this album is any worse for the later efforts.

I don't hear anything wrong in this album. Sure, there are less solos and a couple "nu-metal" riffs, but I don't see this as selling out. Every band that's been around for atleast ten years in existance is doomed to make an album that will dissapoint a fan. Bands lose fans either because of medicore albums that sound the same or if they try something new in their sound.

In this case, In Flames tried something new. I see that as a good thing because I'm already sick of seeing all these lame generic gotheburg metal bands that have been coming out latley, so many unoriginal In Flames and At The Gates clones, it makes me glad In Flames didn't get lost in the herd of their own followers. They managed to evolve their sound (I know some metalheads will laugh that statement here), but it's true, they don' have that primative gothenburg thrash sound and all the songs can be enjoyed by adults. Lets face it, majority of grown people won't want to listen to dark music. Older people want a more mature melodic sound and In Flames matured their songcraft.

In Flames managed to make a refreshing album. The keyboards, although not complex, is a nice ingredient In Flames used in their latest recipe. There's also more singing than growls. I wasn't impressed by the singing but it works in their new sound, complimenting the not really heavy music.

Transparent is a song that has the nu-metal riffs, but it still manages to come up with a catchy hook, I don't think a nu-metal band could even pull that off. There's also a solo towards the end of the song, so solos are not extinct on the album, just used spairingly.

The best song In Flames ever did here is Egonomic. The chorus is just so catchy, it's one those epic type songs. Egonomic is the greatest achivement on the whole CD. I don't care what anyone says, I find the song perfect from begining to end and I find it much more better than some of their older songs before Whoracle.

I'll admit, the slower songs that are focused more on regular singing are too bland. It's like the singer is talking in his sleep. That's the only real drawback here. The songs Egonomic and Transparent make up for the negative aspects of the album so all is not lost at all.

After hearing this album, I'm really looking forward to hear what In Flames has up next. Yeah, they're getting popular, so what? I know underground bands that suck worse and I doubt In Flames changing so drastically to sell records that you'd find them number one on the American Billboards.

Okay, so what we have here is the latest crapsterpiece from perpetual suckage vortex In Flames.

We actually start off pretty promisingly... for the first minute, the first song is total fucking "Walls of Jericho" worship. Nice riffs, great lead guitar going, total speed metal going...

then they realise they're a Geighthenburg band. It's a very up and down song - some decent riffs, but then there is that really shitty under-verse riff. Make up your mind. In the immortal words of Slayer... DO YOU WANT TO SUCK!??!

The next song, "System", is faster for a bit, then gets into a really sickly decrepitly awful interlude. Then we have "Drifter", more of the same crap - the halfthrash riff under the verses is really grating, then a really great break. It's like, make up your mind. Each song seems to have its good parts and its bad parts, can't you be GOOD for an entire song?

Then, in "Trigger" we get a more typical Geightenburg song - the distorted Maiden melodies being repeated over and over again over a barrage of distorted riffs, that's the typical crap intro, and then of course the shit interludes. The album really has some nice riff ideas going, but the way they are connected... what the fuck?

"Dawn of a New Day" is a fucking disaster, I won't even get into it. Whiny mallcore shit. How can anyone say this album is devoid of the modern shitfuck elements that make "music" so unbearable sometimes? That song right there represents everything that is wrong with society today.

"Egonomic" oh look a decent opening riff that just goes nowhere, but at least the song is fast. It sounds like a rejected Tyran Pace song, with the wrong vocal track applied. Meh, I've covered every idea on here so far. Typical Geightenburg shit, mallcore shit, rejected halfthrash riffs, there really isn't much going for this album. Other than the first forty seconds of the first track...

So what we have in here is some decent riffs, combined with some of the crappiest, most grating ideas ever. The songs lack cohesion - just disparate ideas thrown together haphazardly.

That, and the kinda shrieky pseudo-death vocals just don't make SENSE on a power metal album. Not that I like the "clean" vocals better. Take some pills for your fucking stomachace - some CYANIDE PILLS. I sentence you to be assraped by Jonathan Davis!!

In here buried is a nice classic metal album, it just happens to be 6 minutes long, when you take out all the stupid shit. Why, oh why, must bands like this be allowed to exist? This takes the worst of heavy metal (Geightenburg) and combines the worst of modern music (mallcore) creating a real fucking disaster.