IN FLAMES — Colony (review)

IN FLAMES — Colony album cover Album · 1999 · Melodic Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Stooge
Colony is the In Flames album that took them into their popular sound of melodic metal. Granted, they had made plenty of great melodic death metal releases prior to this album. This time around, death metal elements are beginning to be reduced in favour of overall catchiness and greater accessibility. Though they released questionable albums while tackling a similar style and stepping even further from their death metal roots, this definitely isn’t one of them.

This lineup is what many dub as their classic lineup, with Bjorn Gelotte shifting to guitar full-time to accompany Jesper Stromblad, and a stable rhythm section of drummer Daniel Svensson and bassist Peter Iwers.

Critics of this more modern In Flames point to Anders Friden’s vocal style shifting towards a sound similar to Jonathan Davis of the often-hated Korn. You definitely get hints of that in tracks like “Ordinary Story” and “Coerced Coexistence”, but the band at this stage could only be confused for one of Korn’s nu-metal contemporaries by those with a limited exposure to the music style.

The band’s style is built on sort of a modernized Iron Maiden approach with several of the compositions centered on memorable guitar harmonies, sometimes kept consistent throughout entire tracks. This is very much a guitarist’s metal album, with the instrument pretty much taking all of the album’s highlights and making for the prominent sound of the album’s instrumental pieces “Pallar Anders Visa” and bonus track “Mad Made God”.

The highlights on Colony are numerous, including popular favorites like “Ordinary Story”, “Colony”, and re-recording “Behind Space ‘99”, but lesser-discussed songs “Embody The Invisible”, “Zombie Inc.”, and “Insipid 2000” are equally deserving of attention.

If melody mixed with aggression is your thing, then you should definitely own this album.
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