There are moments in your life that you can remember so vividly as if they had happened just last week. One of those moments is when I fell in love with Melodic Death Metal, Gothenburg style, in 1996. A classmate handed me his Discman (yep, that's what we used for listening to music back then) during one of our breaks, and I listened to the acoustic guitars and the drums of the intro section of "Moonshield", the first song of the sophomore album "The Jester Race" by the Swedish metal band In Flames. Then the heavy guitars followed and I was in awe. I couldn't wait for school to be over on that day so I could listen to the whole damn album!
You can imagine just how positively shocked I was when I learned that my guitar hero Jesper Strömblad (who left In Flames in 2010) had teamed up with Dark Tranquility's Mikael Stanne (vocals) - who also did the vocals on In Flames' debut "Lunar Strain - and his former In Flames bandmates Niclas Engelin (guitar), Peter Iwers (bass) and Daniel Svensson (drums). The first single that dropped in November 2021 was the stomping "Shadowminds" and although it felt familiar, from the pulsating intro on it was very clear that this would not be a nostalgic repetition of things we have already heard a thousand times.
While there are many elements to be found on "Days of the Lost" that made In Flames popular, this is not a copy of glory days gone by. Sure, the title track wields the duelling twin-guitars we all love so much, but the album doesn't sound like a forgotten record from the late 90s. And why would it? 2022 me is a different person than 1997 me, and musicians hone their skills. Just listen to the thundering drums in "Conditional" or the clean vocals on "In Broken Trust", and you'll witness fine craftsmanship that makes you think "Where have you been all these years?" And it's certainly a special treat to listen to this epic record with your headphones so you can experience the rich details in "Gateways" or the string section in "Last of our Kind". Underneath it all, there is a sense of melancholy that is also mirrored in the lyrics. And then there's this moment where I thought "Whoa, déjà-vu!": The outro of "A Truth Worth Lying For" reminds me of the chorus of "Only For The Weak", still to this day one of In Flames' most popular songs from the 2000 breakthrough record "Clayman".
Adding to the awesomeness is the production that makes it possible to enjoy every instrument and the vocals while still being seamless and powerful. "Days of the Lost" to me is one of this year's best records, trademark-sounding enough without being outdated, but at the same time deeply rooted in the present. As Mikael Stanne sings in "Shadowminds": Let the now begin!
"Days of the Lost" by The Halo Effect was published via Nuclear Blast on August 12th.
Here you can watch the video for the title track. Rooftops rule!