Track-by-track OFFICIEL !

 

Le site RevolverMag a récemment posté un track-by-track en quatre vidéos de l’album, fait par Anders et – occasionnellement – Peter. Il vous faudra changer votre adresse IP pour pouvoir voir les vidéos. Par ailleurs, le site ArtistDirect propose une interview avec Björn, qui revient sur quelques morceaux également.

Ci-dessous, la retranscription maison des vidéos + l’ajout des parties de Björn en un track-by-track officiel. Tout est en anglais et fidèle à la source.

Merci à Svadek pour l’info.

Anders: « First I have to say, to me, how the album is put together is very important. I know people today might use streaming services and listen to a song here and a song there whatever. But I’m oldschool in a way I nedd my album to sound in a certain way, all the way through. »

01. In Plain View
Anders: « I felt In Plain View was a great opener. It was something that got the listener into feeling « okay, this is In Flames, I recognize this, but at the same time we’re going into a verse that is slightly different. And then you have like a big straight-up chorus that we’re long for these days so it works. »

Björn: « To be honest, that’s not the obvious opening track for In Flames. We’re not Dream Theater or Meshuggah, but it’s got a little bit of that twist and turn in the rhythm part to a degree. That was the main idea to begin with. That was the first thing I played around with when I started writing that song. Then, we thought we should put something more straightforward as a chorus in there and make it a little bit more interesting when it comes to certain things and then be more straightforward when it comes to the obvious. It’s a little bit of an experiment, but when you listen to it, you’ll hear it’s In Flames. In the end, it turned out to be a good opener. »

02. Everything’s Gone
Peter: « Everything’s Gone was really going back to how we used to run through the songs basically. It’s very very down tuned and it’s a fast song and it’s a lot of riffs so it’s kind of hard to hear all the notes being done. When I got the demo -for I was supposed to learn it- I was sitting with Björn in front of me and we were riffing it. As we were sitting like this and we were just playing and jamming, I just got this whole kind of nostalgia feeling of how we used to run through a lot of the songs. I think this song really has an extra-oldschool feeling to it. »

Anders: « Everything’s Gone is the second song. I think with this track, what Björn wanted in the beginning, I think he’s in this imaginary Death Metal band side-project that he got. He gets a bunch of riffs that are really heavy straight-forward Death Metal riffs. I think he tried to compose that type of song with the In Flames touch. But I never felt that I could scream all over the place and do the song justice. I wanted the chorus to be really really heavy like a screamy-sing along type of chorus, where you feel desperation and you feel the words that are written. To me when I listen to the song, I see a person driving on the road in his Ford Mustand and open window and hands out screaming « Everything’s Gone ». »

Björn: « That’s more of an old school nod to death metal. It’s partly where we come from. Sometimes, we really enjoy playing it. It’s a little bit more of a challenge when it comes to the drums, but Daniel Svensson loves the challenge. We wanted to make it as hard and brutal as possible and still have it sound In Flames. We’re not Suffocation. We’re not Malevolent Creation. We’re not Cannibal Corpse. All of those bands are artists we listen to and love. They’re part of what we do in the end. It was like, « Let’s see if we can do that and put the In Flames clothes in it and see what happens ». It’s got some Slayer vibes in there. I’m a huge fan of them! »

03. Paralyzed
Anders: « First I don’t like describing this song because when you are watching this or listening to the album you’ll be « okay that’s waht it is » because I want it to mean something for you. But Paralyzed I think it’s somehting that we as In Flames are known for these days. There’s a groovy verse and a big big chorus. I think it sounds great. That’s stuff I’m gonna say about all the songs really. It’s meant to be listened to loud. »

04. Through Oblivion
Anders: « With every album we create, I want to throw our fans off-guard a little bit. They shouldn’t know exactly what they want but obviously I want them to feel they have In Flames. Therefore we always bring our history with us but we take it to a different level, a different place. With Through Oblivion, I think this is a song that will throw some of the fans off-guard a little bit because it is slightly different from what we’ve done before but, at the same time, it has the In Flames guitar work, but it just – with vocals, how it sounds, it is in a different costume, you know. I’m super proud and I think it’s a really good song – I’m gonna keep saying – but every song is a great song. »

Peter: « Through Oblivion for me was very very fun to record. In the beginning there was this hammering part that I had a lot of..- it took me some times to actually get it into my system. It wasn’t that hard to play but it was hard to get it into playing my way kind of. So some of the stuff in the verse I kind of rid it a little bit, Björn made it more simple but also something I could cope with and I think it made the song more into my style, as far as the bass playing goes obviously. It was a really interesting to record because there was lots of parts that you could experiment with and I kind of went with as it was recorded. I didn’t have all of my parts. I kind of figured out before I went it, I just had the demo that was done of the guitars and the bass and I kind of went in that way, and just tried to figure it out as I recorded it, which made it way more fun than before. »

05. With Eyes Wide Open
Anders: « With Eyes Wide Open, that’s one of the slower tracks. We got two on the album. Before me and Björn, we’ve been having one of this type of songs every other In Flames album. This time around I was in Björn’s house in Göteborg listening to the songs and he had those sort of riffs and he asked me « Can we have both…? » « Yeah yeah yeah… ». You know back in the day in the eighties all the big Metal bands they all had the slow song on side A and a slow song on side B – A and B that’s vinyl as you know – and yeah, this one of them. I think it’s meant to be played in an arena with a lot of people winging the chorus back to me so I can just stand here and listen to everyone. »

Peter: « With Eyes Wide Open was a very special song for me to record as I’m a huge eighties fan, I love eighties ballads, I love eighties Metal especially and I think that this captures a lot of the feeling that was back in that day mixed with In Flames sound obviously. We came out with a song that really captures In Flames on 2014. Fantastic song. »

06. Siren Charms
Anders: « Siren Charms, the title track. Also like a different In Flames song. Calm verse, heavier and screamier chorus. Done in a couple of minutes. It’s a great song. »

07. When The World Explodes
Anders: « When The World Explodes took a little bit of a turn in the studio cause on this one we have really really good vocals delivered by Emilia Felt on the chorus. While I was doing the chorus – I actually didn’t have ladies voices or girls voices in mind – just I was screaming the chrous and it didn’t do anything to me, I didn’t get goosebumps and it was just mehh, whatever…. And then Daniel Bergstrand was like « well I know this girl » and we’ve been checking her on Youtube and I was « woah that’s perfect, that can take this song to the next level, that’s what we needed ». It’s a heavier track but she can mix it so much better. And obviously at the very end the song takes different turns, go into a more electronic vibe, a whole electronic vibe with some vocals, and it’s great middle of the album type of track. It will sound great live…if she’s there. »

08. Rusted Nail
Anders: « Rusted Nail is the first single, the first song people gotta here from this album. And it’s pretty much like In Flames new, it describes where we are as a band today. Has a slightly longer verse than we normally have, we had some people from our fanclub Jesterhead that are singing on the bridge and it’s cool. It’s also one of those ‘drive your car’ – you shouldn’t drive your car very fast but you know what I mean…not too fast – and yeah, drive your car pretty past and scream out loud and have a good time.

Peter: « The song Rusted Nail for me was different from other older In Flames songs. The way that it was built up, I got a strong Kyuss (??) vibe. It was also integrated very well in the In Flames sound obviously and I think it was a lot of fun to record that song cause, for me as a bass player – I didn’t write any of the riffs – it gave me a lot of room to experiment with my playing and I got a lot of ways to play cause it’s a lot of open chords and those stuffs and I kind of actually play with it. i had a lot of fun with it. »

09. Dead Eyes
Anders: « Dead Eyes, that’s the next of those slower songs. A heavy track, very melodic and, some kind of way, I think that, as with « With Eyes Wide Open » it sounds really really good live. Huge chorus and can’t wait to play it live. »

10. Monsters In The Ballroom
Anders: « That was just like the old title, but it is what it is. I think Bjön’s intention from the beginning, he was trying to have a Thrash type of song. I think he was even calling the song like « Thrash », not like it was supposed to be called « Thrash » but we had the working title, and the working title really don’t…you know what I mean. Yeah, so it’s really riffy hard guitar work, and fast picking and straight-forward. Yeah straight-forward, fast, basically. It’s more singing than screaming. It turned out great. That’s also a good song. »

11. Filtered Truth
Anders: « Filtered Truth, the ending of the album. It took a few turns in the studio. I think we got stuck on the writing process and didn’t really know where we should take this song. And throwing things around a little bit on computer and « ok let’s start like this » and then « oh doesn’t that sound a little bit like too much like AC/DC? » We were all like « what’s wrong with that? AC/DC are great » and just let’s do it, don’t be afraid. So it’s our tribute. But then we turned it into – for me at least, the chorus – I saw myself in a Britsih pub with a bunch of friends after, or before, a game of soccer and everybody was – you know – screaming and singing together. Type of the chorus I was aiming for – that feeling. And yeah, that’s the album Siren Charms. »

Björn: « There were two songs on the album where we had to work a lot to get the arrangements right. One was « Siren Charms », the title track, and the other was the ending track « Filtered Truth ». It was a sort of a bitch to get it right because it came in so many shapes and forms. We had an extremely hard intro. We thought, « Maybe that’s too much and we should strip it all away? » Then, we came down to this and that, thinking we should do an acoustic start. It was a big struggle. All of a sudden, when everything came into place, the vocals just flew in there. It was effortless as soon as we got the arrangements right. It’s a cool thing. It’s a sing-a-long without being cheesy. It sums up the album. It’s got a nice little solo I’m happy with. »