In Flames
Reroute to Remain 4-Track Teaser CD
~reviewed by Eric Rasmussen

You might have noticed that the album title for the new In Flames release is a bit peculiar. I assure you, however, that the version I received is called Reroute to Remain 4-Track Teaser CD. That's because there are only four tracks on the CD, and, curiously, it is a teaser CD. This is because the full album has more than 14 minutes of music. Now, you might be wondering what good it does a reviewer to receive such a small portion of CD. I'll tell you:

It doesn't do any good. 

But hey, who am I to argue with a band and label's decision? I am perfectly capable of reviewing 4 songs! So I'll keep this short:

1 - Cloud Connected
This song is typical In Flames. It is neither better nor worse than their older material, except that it has a grittier production that makes it sound a lot like nu-metal. Nu-metal that is uninteresting and boring.

2 - System
This is another song on the CD. And it's about as exciting as The Previous Sentence. There is a slow section with adult contemporary vocals that isn't metal at all. Hey, I'm all for experimentation, but I'm not into mixing my metal with contemporary soft-rock and mundane soft-singing. If you're all for that, though, I can say with complete authority that you will like some parts of this one track. And I can say with no authority that the rest of the album may be as crappy as this song.

3 - Reroute to Remain
See 1.

4 - Dawn of a New Day
Hey, something different! Amazing, In Flames have managed to make a unique song that is totally forgettable and a waste of time. This one features some folk-ish acoustic guitars, which sound pretty good until they're marred by the vocal performance. I don't know what happened to Anders, but at some point he decided he could sing. He really can't. But he thinks  he can. See where I'm going with this? 

The clean singing isn't any good, but it's used a fair bit in these 4 songs. He also tries a low spoken voice approach on this song, and says "I never thought I'd join the udders." Now, I'm really not trying to mock his accent here, but he clearly did not say the word "others." He said udders. And in a folk-ish acoustic piece with spoken words, why wouldn't he be talking about udders?

So there you have it, a review of four songs. Nuclear Blast told me that this was the only version of the CD they had to send reviewers. If you're reading reviews that don't point out they received a limited promo, either they're misleading, Nuclear Blast is lying, or the reviewers secured mp3 copies of the rest of the album. Because, as some of you might have guessed, it's not hard to get ahold of those. Since the CD is out, they're all over the net. 

What good did it do to send me a cut version of the CD? None, unless you're finding this crippled review in some way helpful. I can't tell you whether or not the CD is any good. Maybe the other tracks are all brilliant, and Nuclear Blast is just messing with me. Either way, they're only going to hurt themselves. If any of you want a more complete review, feel free to send me $20 for a full version (which I promise will be really, really cool!). 

So, seeing as this little experiment didn't do anyone any good, let's turn it into a really long winded way for Starvox to say this:

We are no longer going to review teaser CDs.

Track List: 
1.) Cloud Connected
2.) System
3.) Reroute to Remain
4.) Dawn of a New Day

In Flames is:
Peter
Daniel
Anders
Bjorn
Jesper

In Flames - Official Site: 
http://www.inflames.com

Nuclear Blast Records:
http://www.nuclearblast.de

09/09/02