It is finally here! Gothenburg, Sweden’s melodic death metal legends In Flames released new full length opus with Nuclear Blast! After listening to the EP that went with Metal Hammer a week ago we got a taste of what is to come, but only a taste, now here is the full meal. Here are twelve songs of melodic death metal that take In Flames to their old school era leaning more on death metal than on influences they had in their songwriting as decades moved with them. There are still some electronic effects behind the riffs, some excursions into some more melodic and mellow waters but I love how Anders’ voice transforms between growling and clean melodic singing on epic choruses, sounding better than ever! Besides hits that were already on that EP like awesome ‘State Of Slow Decay’ and ‘Foregone Pt I’ and ‘Foregone Pt II’, there is also superb ‘Bleeding Out’, a perfect combo between harsh death metal and epic melodies. But, one of my personal highlights is for sure almost ballad like ‘Pure Light Of Mind’ having such gentle and beautiful lyrics topped with Anders’ vocal melodies and having almost pop influenced undertones beneath metal, me having Roxette in mind for a few seconds hehe. ‘In The Dark’ and ‘Become One’ are also songs to add as highlights. This is for sure to become one of the candidates for album of the year, it is an album of the month for sure.

10/10