** Black Ash Inheritance by In Flames – One of the Reasons In Flames Became a Global Phenomenon

This is one of In Flames earlier efforts.  The band was younger, and the angst is detectable in their sound.  When I listen to this album, I think this is a band that is out to prove, if not pioneer, a career.  It’s is like listening to a band that likes nothing more than to get an audience dancin’ with their thrashy death n’ roll.  I hear the melancholy on this album, and it is like I am listening to a band steeped with desire to prove themselves that is so strong that their guts are in knots just trying to get it out.

I can’t speak for their home country, but when this cd was released, hardly anybody in America had heard of them.  It wasn’t until Whoracle that people started catching on to this band.  

I like to refer to this genre as death n’ roll.  I didn’t invent the term.  I would say the first death n’ roll I ever heard was Carcass.  Basically, death n’ roll takes the catchiness of pop punk  and combines it with death metal or black metal.  This style may be more commonly known as thrash, though I have never heard In Flames billed as a thrash band.  This music isn’t fast enough to call speed metal, and it isn’t technical enough to call progressive metal, and it isn’t heavy enough to call death metal, and personally I never figured out what black metal is.

This is an excellent album, and definitely one of In Flames best efforts.  There are lots of catchy pop like hooks, but with a darker sound.  One of the problems with this album is that it all sounds the same.  For example, you could cut and paste just about any part of one song in this album and put it in a different place, and essentially, it would be the same album as before.