Clayman - In Flames

Clayman was in flames last attempt at that pure gothenburg melodic death metal sound before they attempted the elecro and nu-metal influenced sound on later releases. This is more straight forward than whoracle there are far less guitar interludes with the songs on this release being somewhat more catchy and focused. 'Another Day in Quicksand' is a riff heavy beast with the guitars weaving around untill the main riff kicks you in the head. Most of the songs have this structure to them so I recommend this album if you love melodic ...  Read the complete review

An intermediate release for Sweden’s In Flames, Clayman marks the end of the band’s melodic death metal era before they inexplicably moved onto pastures ‘nu.’ With 11 songs of varying degrees of mediocrity, Clayman isn’t a bad album, but one that fails consistently to learn what it is that it wants to try to sound like. As each In Flames release departs further and further from the melodic death metal sound they pioneered, it’s useful to trace this decadence back through their discography and find the point at which the band really started to lose it. After the genre-defining The Jester Race and Whoracle, 1999’s Colony was a bit of a let-down, if only for ...  Read the complete review