Scribed by Sandre the Giant
Ironically the Anniversary Series has come to an In Flames album I mentioned only a couple of posts ago regarding its somewhat divisive nature amongst old school In Flames fans. It has been 20 years since ‘Soundtrack to Your Escape’ appeared on the scene, taking that classic Gothenburg sound and, how will we say, ‘modernising’ it into the early 2000s mainstream metal world. It was the first In Flames record I encountered in my youth, through the ubiquitous ‘The Quiet Place’, and that probably rings true for a lot of my generation. So, what was the issue?
Well, a lot of bands had been given stick by fans in the late 90s for turning grungey or nu-metally in order to follow the trends of the time. In Flames could not have been accused of that at all, their classic ‘Whoracle’, ‘Clayman’, ‘Colony’ trilogy appeared perfectly in that window and provided much need brutality in a time when it seemed to be fading. Their 2002 record ‘Reroute to Remain’ was the one that really set the new direction of In Flames in the early 00s though, adopting many elements of the burgeoning American metalcore scene (which had already been pillaging At the Gates and In Flames riffs, in an oddly circular moment). That melodic Iron Maiden-gallop was gone, there were clean vocals; people were not really sure of what to think, and that continued over to the follow up in 2004. I think ‘Soundtrack…’ is a fairly maligned record for no specific reason, other than it didn’t go back to being ‘Whoracle’. Opener ‘F(r)iend’ is a fairly savage slab of melodeath, ‘Touch of Red’ sticks to their classic blueprint fairly tightly except probably vocally, and even when they go off script a little, such as in ‘Evil in a Closet’ and the keyboardy ‘My Sweet Shadow’, it is at least still approached in a way that is uniquely theirs. Anders Fridén‘s clean vocals have been a bone of contention too, but I had no real context going into this 20 years ago, so I’ve never had an issue with them. With 20 years of hindsight and much more time spent in their discography, it was probably their weakest record to date but when they’ve hit it out of the park repeatedly beforehand, that wouldn’t be difficult.
If you follow the Metal Archives reviews, you will see that this record is not well liked by that fan base. But the thing about ‘Soundtrack to Your Escape’ is, the dirty little secret, is that it is actually pretty fun and probably very overlooked. It pales in comparison to its follow up ‘Come Clarity’, but let’s be honest, ‘Come Clarity’ was a stunning version of their classic sound that most albums that year failed to come close to. It isn’t a fair comparison. ‘Soundtrack to Your Escape’ is important to me because it provided a gateway into a genre of music I hadn’t come across before. The super melodic riffing, accessible scream/sing vocal combinations, the chuggy riffs; these are all key elements in what hooked me in. We all need to stop pretending that we grew up listening to Obituary or Napalm Death and loving it, we all needed ways into the extremer side of metal and ‘Soundtrack…’ is a perfect example of it.
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