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In Flames: Colony
20/08/09 || Smalley
In Flames didn’t really need to prove anything more by 1999, since they’d already put out four excellent, influential melodeath records by then, and if you’re familiar with them, in all likelihood, “Colony” won’t strike you as a mind-blowing record or anything like that. But, though there isn’t much difference between the styles of “Colony” and “Whoracle” (their previous album), I now know I was wrong to just write “Colony” off as Whoracle: pt. II upon first listen; sure, In Flames didn’t evolve much here, but you really can’t demand major change with each new record, and their sound was still fresh enough then to make this a good album at least, if not quite as impressive or trail-blazing as the previous ones were.
“Embody the invisible” shows right away that Flames still had the gift for spirited, enjoyable melodeath in ’99, with catchy interaction between the lead and rhythm guitars, energetic vocals from Anders Fridén that have a stronger tone than on the other albums, and good integration of keyboarding into IF’s sound, an instrument that saw only rare use from them previously, and the most significant change I can point to on this album. It’s a good opening track, not amazing but still enjoyable, and provides the template the rest of the album will follow, which is mostly enjoyable as well.
The more melodic and laid-back “Ordinary story” makes for a logical follow-up, while “Scorn” flounders by giving Anders an ugly and pointless vocal effect. Everything else on the song is okay, and the effect does go away after a bit, but it still hurts my overall enjoyment of “Scorn”, making my least favorite cut on the album. Anyway, the title track then excels through some extremely catchy songwriting and very good use of keyboards, and is one of the best tracks on “Colony”, with all of the remaining songs (besides the useless re-record of “Behind space”) offering solid melodeath, if not really impressing. “Coerced coexistence” sticks out as the high point of the entire album, due to its powerful, memorable chorus, but the serene, soothing “Pallar Anders visa”, and spot-on instrumental “Man made god” make very good impressions as well.
So “Colony” is a pretty consistent and enjoyable album on the whole, if a bit more workman than the previous albums were, lacking the innovation and impact of those records. This isn’t going to stop you in your tracks and make you listen to it again and again in all-night binge fests or anything, and definitely isn’t the first In Flames album I’d reach for, but it is still good, and I can’t say I’m anything other than satisfied with “Colony”, so I will give it…
- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.inflames.com
- Band
- Anders Fridén: vocals
- Jesper Strömblad: guitar
- Björn Gelotte: guitar
- Peter Iwers: bass
- Daniel Svensson: drums
- Charlie Storm: keyboards, CPU (guest)
- Fredrik Nordström: slide guitar (guest)
- Tracklist
- 01. Embody the Invisible
- 02. Ordinary Story
- 03. Scorn
- 04. Colony
- 05. Zombie Inc.
- 06. Pallar Anders Visa
- 07. Coerced Coexistence
- 08. Resin
- 09. Behind Space ’99
- 10. Insipid 2000
- 11. The New World
- 12. Clad in Shadows ’99
- 13. Man Made God
