{"id":3904,"date":"2011-06-15T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T00:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=3904"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:03:56","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:03:56","slug":"album-review-in-flames-sounds-of-a-playground-fading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-in-flames-sounds-of-a-playground-fading\/","title":{"rendered":"IN FLAMES – Sounds Of A Playground Fading (2011) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

IN FLAMES
Sounds Of A Playground Fading<\/strong><\/span>
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\nCentury Media (2011)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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To say that In Flames has come a long way since their humble beginnings, during which they helped launch the melodic death metal genre, would be a massive understatement. Although the band might claim otherwise, it\u2019s easy to note that their last few albums have little in common with albums like Whoracle<\/em> (1997) and Colony<\/em> (1999). For In Flames\u2019 career, that\u2019s a good thing. Though older diehard fans might not particularly like the idea, the band has become a lyrically introspective and deeply musical beast that has few, if any, peers. Unfortunately the man largely behind that, main songwriter and guitarist Jesper Str\u00f6mblad has gone to leash his inner demons, leaving the band to take a new approach to songwriting and the result is Sounds Of A Playground Fading<\/em>. <\/p>\n

The album kicks off with the title track which is a heavy hitter that continues in the heavier vein of A Sense Of Purpose<\/em> (2008), the band\u2019s last album. After it pumps you up however, the band struggles through the next few tracks (\u2018Deliver Us\u2019, \u2018All For Me\u2019, and \u2018The Puzzle\u2019). All three songs are fine but forgettable at best, sounding predictable (lyrically and musically) and getting lost in the album\u2019s overall mix in much the same way the midsection of Soundtrack To Your Escape<\/em> (2004) did. It certainly makes fans nervous when an album takes a nosedive as serious as this so quickly.<\/p>\n

After the nosedive the band recovers fully as \u2018Fear Is The Weakness\u2019 swoops down and kicks your ass, reminding you that this is the same band that delivered \u2018Crawl Through Knives\u2019, \u2018Bullet Ride\u2019, and \u2018Mirror\u2019s Truth\u2019. From there the band just takes off with bombastic anthems like \u2018Where Dead Ships Dwell\u2019, the System of a Down-ish \u2018Ropes\u2019, and the string-laden \u2018A New Dawn\u2019 interspersed with heavier and speedier pieces like \u2018Darker Times\u2019 and \u2018Enter Tragedy\u2019. The band even offer a couple of spoken word, nearly interlude type pieces that maybe aren\u2019t for everybody but make the album a much more interesting listen (\u2018Jester\u2019s Door\u2019 even reminds me a little of the Passengers side project from years ago). It\u2019s the album\u2019s closer, \u2018Liberation\u2019, though that takes this album completely over the top. Despite the complete absence of screaming, In Flames have rarely sounded better than they do on this song. It\u2019s a positive sounding, explosive anthem, that firmly establishes that In Flames have their sights set on creating something much more lasting than most bands they started out alongside. <\/p>\n

Overall, this is a transition album for In Flames and it\u2019s easy to identify this collection as the band trying out their new knees, so to speak. This isn\u2019t nearly as cohesive or breathtaking as a whole as Come Clarity<\/em> (2006) or A Sense Of Purpose<\/em> were but the latter half of the album certainly holds up to the high standards established by said albums. Longtime fans will, again, not find a return to the old sound but will find an enjoyable album with some completely brilliant moments on it.<\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IN FLAMESSounds Of A Playground Fading Century Media (2011)Rating: 7\/10 To say that In Flames has come a long way since their humble beginnings, during which they helped launch the melodic death metal genre, would be a massive understatement. Although the band might claim otherwise, it\u2019s easy to note that their last few albums have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-in-flames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3904"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11973,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions\/11973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}