After hearing many rumours claiming that In Flames had updated their sound for this album, I have to admit the truth behind them all. 'Clayman' (2000) showed some changes, but that was a really welcome news after somewhat lacklustre 'Colony (1999). The band had offered us everything they could in their former style, I guess. After reviewing something like Arcturus' 'The Sham Mirrors' (2002), I think getting up-to-date can be a good thing. But, it can be bad, too... I have tried to write this review for months, so you might guess what I think of 'Reroute to Remain'.

In Flames (IF from now on) say they do what they want. That's good if the guys are happy. But I'm not. This sounded pretty good at first, but when I dug deeper, I noticed something I never believed would/could happen to this band: IF have kind of buried a lot of melodies they're known for, oppressed them, or many times they've even dumped them, and put the beat to the front of everything else. Some of the the melodies are plain imitations of their former ones (e.g. 'Trigger', 'Dark Signs'). Hell, they were spit over for being too melodic, but I always thought they had a great metallurgy going on. The music varies from heavy and simple beating to more melodic music and to slower stuff, featuring an Irish type violin ('Metaphor', a good song reminding me of prime Therapy?, shows what these guys are capable of). No death metal, but modern metal, I guess. It is the only thing I can think of when listening to this album. The single cut 'Cloud Connected', 'System', 'Drifter' (I think I'm sniffing some old school IF guitar work here), 'Free Fall', 'Black & White' and the title track rule in this bunch. Okay, IF have tried something new, and partly it rocks my world, but only partly. During some very occasional no-brains type stuff, because at least there's energy flowing here, no matter what you think about the songs.

The Daniel Bergstrand production is partly his trademark stuff again; very live sound, but mostly only on drums and bass this time. The rhythm section sounds very intense, but low end is also distorted (I mean not only the instrument itself). Guitars are usually put through something making them powerless and muddy, but there's some "fingers on the fretboard" stuff left in the mix. It feels like sound "sways" a bit. This lowers the score by 1-2 points, definitely! Anders Fridén's vocals are divided into a clean voice and uglier shriek/growl hybrid. Later ones are between okay and good, as they've always been, but clean vocals are mainly bad, only saved to some point by multiple vocal tracks used at same time. They are powerless and Anders can't sing convincingly at all, but his voice is characteristic enough. The vocal effects are also used, about which I really can't tell are they okay or not. The synthesizers have very modern edge to them, generally being good enough.

And then one thing outside the music: Digipak's cover artwork sucks (okay, not as much as 'Clayman's, heh). When compared to the jewel-case edition, this is bad! Why I waited for this version?! Should have picked the "normal" version, as this doesn't contain any bonus shit anyway. This does matter to me, because I am kind of a graphic designer. Lyrics (a lot of stuff about real world again) are printed on folding digipak (hellishly annoying to read) and graphics are not of same high standard as the jewel-case version.

I collected my thoughts on a paper about the songs and majority of my opinions read "OK enough". Scattering quality happens usually inside one song, which is a sad truth. Still, this is above average, but after more than five spins it became clear, that this is one of the weakest albums from the band. Musically speaking. Of course it is loud. But hey, nothing stays the same, and we have heard some "back-to-the-roots" albums earlier by some well-known metal bands, even though they might have been more or less disastrous happenings. I bet this is more disastrous than In Flames getting back to their roots. I just get too many a vision of short-haired, wide pant legs people jumping up 'n' down showing horned hand because it is just cool, without knowing what it means... I think I'm not buying the next In Flames album.

Reviewed by Lane
05/16/2003 21:54

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.

Rating: 8½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
06/23/2015 16:16