Reroute To Remain - In Flames

...heavy-er rock, you will find Reroute to Remain a most worthwhile purchase.

1.: Reroute To Remain

The title of the album is also the title of the first song. This song starts with an eerie electronic introduction, rapidly interrupted by the beat of the classic death metal rhythm guitar. More high-pitched melodic death metal style guitar plays over this intrductory shock until the croaky, gritty screaming breaks in, highlighted ...
...verses, breaks a rather unexpected high-pitched "chipmunk" sound voice which plays as a background for high-pitched screamy chorus. Following this is another screamy set of verses and chorus. Then a blisteringly fast, but shortlived solo with the high-pitched guitar. Not the best song on the album, but certainly not bad!

2.: System

A huge SHOCK as this song starts, with rapid unbroken screaming, fast paced ... more

"Reroute to Remain" is arguably the greatest In Flames album ever made! It is an unforgettable rollercoaster ride of emotions, ranging from the furious beat of Egonomic to the eerie instrumentals on Metaphor. If you like metal or even heavy-er rock, you will find Reroute to Remain a most worthwhile purchase.

1.: Reroute To Remain

The title of the album is also the title of the first song. This song starts with an eerie electronic introduction, rapidly interrupted by the beat of the classic death metal rhythm guitar. More high-pitched melodic death metal style guitar plays over this intrductory shock until the croaky, gritty screaming breaks in, highlighted by the thundering beat of the rhythm guitar. After the verses, breaks a rather unexpected high-pitched "chipmunk" sound voice which plays as a background for high-pitched screamy chorus. Following this is another screamy set of verses and chorus. Then a blisteringly fast, but shortlived solo with the high-pitched guitar. Not the best song on the album, but certainly not bad!

2.: System

A huge SHOCK as this song starts, with rapid unbroken screaming, fast paced and unrelentless. Only to break to a rapid beat on the guitar, just to start again! If playing in headphones, it is like he screams something into one ear, then replys to himself with the next scream, a quite unique listening experience. This song breaks into a low-pitched almost "talky" chorus. With a sing-a-long chorus! "Slow, I Go! And the wait seems to over! All, that i know! is that my life has become such a waste for you!" This chorus is repeated throughout, broken by a single set of verses later on. This chorus becomes progressively more intense and more enjoyable, so the repetition doesn't get boring. The song comes to a sudden stop with a quiet "youuuu" at the end.

3.: Drifter

After the shock of System, Drifter steps up the pace even more. With what sounds like a double-time drum beat, Drifter is really, really fast, and thats not an exaggeration. The pace is kept up throughout, with some high pitched screaming. Then some very fast singing for the chorus, which uses the same "multiple ear" scheme to make it sound like the voices are answering eachother. It uses combinations of screaming and clean vocals, and breaks out into a high-pitched solo, which really fits in with the songs speed. This solo leads onto a less bassy more accapella sounding chorus, which gives the song a bit of variety. I really like this song

4.: Trigger

After another fast guitar thrash at the beginning, this song breaks into sole screaming, without any instrumentals except the drum beat for the vocals, personally I believe that this makes the voice sound quite weak at first, but the screams strengthen as the rhythm guitar is added behind the screaming without you even noticing unless you actually listen out for when it comes in! Then it has a very catchy clean-vocalled chorus, "From green to red i paint the sky.." It then breaks into a quiet-clean vocalled break, without any background instrumentals, then it thunders into another chorus! Another flawless solo in this track, with some rather neat guitar work and almost the sound of a rolling tyre from the guitar. A unique and fabulous track.

5.: Cloud Connected

This song begins with a high pitched flutter from a keyboard, then breaks in with a catchy beat from the death metal rhythm guitar, with the electronic theme still present. This breaks into a high-pitched, but slow singing verse, which progressively breaks out into screaming. The chorus is very catchy, "This is the hour, we bring it down!" then a slight pause, which breaks out into the truly memorable chorus, "Oh when least expected! CLOUD CONNECTED!" I loved this song at first, listened to it so much that I have stopped liking it now :( But a truly awesome track nevertheless, although it does get tiring if you overlisten to it, however for me that happens to any great song after a while anyway, so nothing to worry about really.

6.: Transparent

An agonising roll from a low guitar, which breaks into "sickening" screams, which convey a sinister tone to the song. This verse is great though! It has one of my favourite In Flames moments in, "One foot in the open..." that bit owns. the chorus is the kind of "detached" sounding signature In Flames style voice, which sounds like he is talking to you down the phone. "you're all so self-destructive!...WHEN U FEEL TRANSPARENT!!!!" This song isn't as memorable as some of the other tracks on this album, but it certainly isnt weak, especially due to the aaawesome solo about 3/4 of the way through, which leads into my favourite part for the 3rd time! This song is good stuff!

7.: Dawn Of A New Day

This song tones the tune right down. If anyone reading owns "Colony" this song has the same tone to it as the song "Square Nothing" the eerie, echoey sound of Anders' deep voice, this song however doesn't break out into screaming as "Square nothing" does, therefore I do sometimes find this song quite boring, because it is rather slow, but if you do also enjoy the deep, eerie theme that In Flames sometimes employ this song is for you, for me however, i believe if there had to be a weak link in the album, overall i would say that this was it...

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From this line onwards, every song is AWESOME, if I havent got a playlist, i always play this album from here!

8.: Egonomic

The greatest song ever made. However the down-side is, its only 2:39 long! It starts simalarly to Drifter with the fast guitar, but the high pitched screaming in this song is exceptional, and the chorus is possibly my favourite In Flames moment, "Everyday in every way, we are getting weaker!" The screaming is great, I love the part in the second verse where he says "neverrr evarrr!!" he actually sounds like some kind of animal! This song also has a very nice solo, which fits in very nicely, the high point of the whole song. Which breaks down into some thunderous guitar! Then it heightens the tempo and the pitch and the chorus is belted out, with true sing-a-long potential, if you like In Flames you MUST own this song.

9.: Minus

A hard place to be on this album, after Egonomic, but I believe "Minus" also holds its own as one of the better songs on this album. Alhough relatively slow, the lyrics are something to die for! "Drug me, infiltrate my neverland!" are the first words, "you watch my Bluuddd begin to BOIL" Then the screamy chorus "electric spiiiine!" however, this true high point of this song is the end of the chorus, another one of my favourite In Flames moments, "...on a butterfly I ride!" Another true sing-a-long moment! This song also boasts a spectacular guitar solo and some pretty impressive drumming for In Flames. It finishes with some intense screaming, which if you know the lyrics for are awesome for scream-a-longs.

10.: Dismiss The Cynics

Wow, just WOW. The lyrics for this song are out-of-this-world. The song has that "rollling" guitar which is also present in "Trigger" but this is just better in so many ways. This song sings of epic failures and has random eerie Talking sprinkled about for added effect. "WOULD U CHOOSE SUPREMACY IF IT LED TO ISOLATION, COULD U HANDLE THE SOLITUDE? WOULD U STILL PREFER THE THRONE?" Simply genius. The chorus to this song is perhaps the only slight disappointment, it slows the song down and is agonising really, spoils a potentially perfect song. however the progressively speeding up solo of this song makes it definately worth listening to, fabulous!

11.: Free Fall

one of my favourite In Flames introductions. Simalar to Cloud Connected, a kind of "tinkling" keyboard sound, which breaks into heavy guitar. Then almost a "DJ deck" sounding "spin-back" which breaks into agonising singing, which blends into a blurry beginning to this tune. This song has both blurry lyrics, and even the screaming is rather "blurry" sounding, it isn't as clean-sounding as most in Flames songs, which isn't a bad thing. Although relatively slow compared to the rest of the album, there is so much diversity throughout this song, from the blurry verses and pre-chorus, to the melodic main-chorus, "It's like i'm living a lie" The lyrics to this song are great, however I do get a bit bored sometimes of "This is the free fall" which is repeated too often in my opinion. This song also includes a fast paced, almost dragonforce sounding solo, which breaks down to the introductory tinkle, which leads onto an intense scream leading into the pre-chorus. fabulous song, not the best, but one of the better tunes!

12.: Dark Signs

Rapid. thrilling. exhillerating. Three words that mean "DARK SIGNS" This song has the best rhythm of all the In Flames songs, with some quite hard-hitting lyrics, "Bound down, strangled and abused!" Quite intense for In Flames anyway! And this song, after the first part of the first verse, Anders goes "YAYA" which I dont know why, really sticks in my head after listening to this song. A slow melodic chorus is broken by some fast-paced, absolutely stunning screaming. A good all round tune, but nothing absolutely spectacular.

13.: Metaphor

This track slows the pace right down, a nice breather if you have been singing-a-long. He sounds funny here "You are the sickness inbetveen" (not a typO) he sounds very swedish. This is an acoustic song, with some quite high-pitched, moany lyrics, which break the intense nature of this album, "you make me feel like a sinner" this is an agonisingly slow song, not bad, but quite boring and sounds as if it is badly recorded, which i imagine is an intended effect. It does have some epic drumming, which sounds like african style drums, being played through both ears, quite "epic" sounding, this leads into an uplifting little chorus, which fades out to the end of the song.

14.: Black And White

The inevitable, post-metaphor shock. metaphor fades out into "Black and white!" Which has a fuzzy intro, which starts with some clear talking, seperated by banging guitar. This clean talking is broken by some violent screaming. The chorus is a mix of both clean and screamy vocals overlapped, a really nice, unique effect. the clean vocals always starts with the word "I" like "I see clear" then the screams starts with "you," for example "You claim that you are innocent, but tell me who aint! ... there's no such thing as a saint!" The chorus has some clever lyrics, "between black and white theres no room for two" which on the colour scale is true. After the most violent screaming, an epic solo breaks out which lifts the mood. Only to be broken back down to an intense sounding chorus with some adventurous drumming solo!

So overall, Egonomic the best, Dawn of a new day the worst, but even that isnt bad. A truly spectacular album, 100% recommended, recommended to anyone, exquisitely presented music.
No album cover could do this content justice, therfore the cover is only rated "Good" :) 

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