In Flames: In A State Of Slow Decay

A global pandemic tried to lock down live music behind bars for good. The cost of living crisis is threatening to derail its return. And the world’s leaders continue to waltz us toward the end of time. With doomsday approaching, it’s no surprise melodic death metal pioneers IN FLAMES are soundtracking the apocalypse – even if it’s the last thing they want to talk about.

“I’m kind of tired talking about the COVID period, but I have to do it because it’s such a big part of this album,” sighs vocalist Anders Fridén, sipping coffee from the confines of their tour bus on the way to Wiesbaden in Germany. “I felt like ‘what if I don’t have this anymore?’ It’s been a part of my whole life and all of a sudden it’s just gone.”

Whilst we all slowly sunk into daily routines of baking banana bread, doing Pilates, and hopping on Zoom calls just to see our loved ones, Anders – joined by bassist Bryce Paul, drummer Tanner Wayne, and guitarists Björn Gelotte and Chris Broderick – spent their days watching their livelihoods slip away. “I started thinking maybe I will never get that again, like am I musician or what am I, you know? Music is such a big part of me and there were times where I was really worried, especially when the world was opening up and we got Omicron and it shut down again for another year – it was like, what the fuck is going on?”

Rather than wallow away for the rest of their days, IN FLAMES clambered through trenches and wire to record a follow-up to 2018’s I, The Mask. Split across continents, they reconvened in Los Angeles the moment the airways opened. As they caught up, their fourteenth album Foregone wrote itself.

“I felt like there was nothing else I could write. It had to be about the time and the feeling and what we do and the climate,” explains Anders, pausing to collect his thoughts. “This album is about time, and time is running out, you know? We have a certain clock encoded in our DNA, we don’t know when that’s gone and all we hear all the time is how this planet is going up in flames soon.”

Anthemic moments like Meet Your Maker combine the crushing melodeath of their late-90s heyday with the sing-along arena-rock of recent years. More importantly, they dare to ask the questions we shy away from, the what ifs of humanity’s existence if you will. “What are we doing to our planet and to ourselves and how we treat each other? What do you do when you meet your maker – what do you say? What do you think? How do you feel?”

Foregone is an experiment in existential thinking. It’s an album that’ll take you on a rollercoaster of riffs but challenge your perception of the world around you. It’s directed by the crushing blow dealt to Anders outlook on his global community during the post-pandemic fallout. “I thought that we would come out of COVID with a better understanding, and more love and more respect for one another,” expresses Anders, full of hope before letting out a sigh. “Instead, we have a war in Europe and the conversation online, people are pointing fingers left and right and we are so angry and there’s no agree to disagree – like, I don’t agree with you, therefore I hate you – like, what the fuck? Foregone is not a happy album by any chance or by any means, because that’s where we’re going. But if we know that, why don’t we change it? Do we want to fight all the way to the end? I just don’t get it.”

Foregone revels in the darkest corners of our world, and by extension, the deepest caverns of our minds. Whilst much of the album takes on the world, tracks like A Dialogue In B Flat Minor cry out from the corners of Anders cranium. As he sings ‘there’s a ghost in my head I fight every day, and sometimes he gets his way, I’m stuck in a loop and I’m trying to feel, I’m hearing him speak so I know it’s real’, is this his own experiences of the mental health crisis we’re succumbing to as a global community?

“I think that’s very much the point – I use metaphors and stuff like that when I write, because I want people to feel. I want people to turn my lyrics into their own, because for me, just writing them is like a therapy session. I get it out of my head, I get it away from me,” he says. “I was told when I was younger that if you write what you feel on paper and you go into the forest and set it on fire, then you will release those thoughts and you don’t have to carry them anymore, and that’s what these lyrics are for me. After the album, they’ve gone out of my way – I still feel a lot for them, but they belong to someone else.”

Just like its lyrics revisits IN FLAMES penchant for international introspection, once bought to life on 1999’s Colony and 2000’s Clayman, Foregone combines their alt-metal present with their melodic death metal roots. Considering the missteps I, The Mask made – was this return to heavier form intentional, or driven by the pandemic?

“Every album we make is something new – we move forward in time, we never look back,” asserts Anders firmly. “I am extremely proud of our history but I feel we always bring those roots of melody and aggression, and it comes out in certain ways. For this album, we didn’t listen or think about I, The Mask at all, it’s never been about that, but we had a COVID in between so this album is born out of frustration, and the great feeling of being back in the room together again.”

Having likened their pre-pandemic approach to making records as “something we took for granted”, as an experience that felt like “it was just a hamster wheel”, the break between albums and the reunions in rehearsal rooms helped IN FLAMES find that the fire in their bellies is burning brighter than ever. More importantly, the introduction of Chris Broderick on guitar alongside Bryce and Tanner settling in to their second album, has the future of the band fixed for good times.

“I know we’re talking about Foregone, but knowing what I do now, when it comes to recording, I can’t wait to do the next album because now I know what we have with this line-up, with us sounding better than ever live, then next we should go even further down this more guitar-driven sound – it’s amazing having these guys in the band.”

But before Foregone becomes its own conclusion, there’s an audience ready and waiting to indulge in its layers like they’re consuming a cake of many flavours. And for Anders, it’s over to them, but he does hope it leaves the world in a better place than the one it was made in – and if not, he at least hopes it serves as an escape. “Music for me is a way to escape, it’s always been like that since I fell in love with it – it helps me escape from the world outside but I also want you to feel something and if it could be a support to someone dealing with things themselves, they know there’s someone else In the world feeling the same, and that is something I would like to give, like being a friend.”

“We need to get away, we can’t keep being online all the time, reading all the magazines about how the world is going to end. If you open a magazine, it’s just shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, and there’s not a lot of happy stories, so we need to look away from our screens, we need to look away from all that is bad and just dive into music and art. So, I hope this is some sort of escape for you.”

Foregone is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.

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