Loved this band since first hearing the Lunar Strain effort, highly rate Colony and Clayman and Reroute to Remain. However Soundtrack to your escape was painfully bad (methinks taking the steps on reroute too far) - then Come Clarity was heavily infected with the taint of EMO, and Anders thinking he can sing despite his being excellent only for screaming.
Then we come to A Sense of Purpose; to sum it up, listening again to every album pre Soundtrack, it just feels like they are holding back on the aggresive creative front. It's nothing not heard of before, whilst it is siginature In Flames it is by no means vintage.
It is a good listen for any fan but will soon slip to the back of far greater In Flames albums. One can only, feel in the wake of bands like Arch Enemy and Gojira who are marching on with the sound, that In Flames will find themselves in a similar position to Fear Factory and Machine Head around 2001, only time will tell if they can turn it around like the… more »

Loved this band since first hearing the Lunar Strain effort, highly rate Colony and Clayman and Reroute to Remain. However Soundtrack to your escape was painfully bad (methinks taking the steps on reroute too far) - then Come Clarity was heavily infected with the taint of EMO, and Anders thinking he can sing despite his being excellent only for screaming.
Then we come to A Sense of Purpose; to sum it up, listening again to every album pre Soundtrack, it just feels like they are holding back on the aggresive creative front. It's nothing not heard of before, whilst it is siginature In Flames it is by no means vintage.
It is a good listen for any fan but will soon slip to the back of far greater In Flames albums. One can only, feel in the wake of bands like Arch Enemy and Gojira who are marching on with the sound, that In Flames will find themselves in a similar position to Fear Factory and Machine Head around 2001, only time will tell if they can turn it around like the afforementioned greats.

Many have turned their back on In Flames, others have just discovered them but love or hate them, In Flames currently sit as one of the biggest bands in metal today. A Sense Of Purpose, they're ninth studio album, sees the band blatantly turn their back on their Melodic Death Metal routes for a more conventional metalcore sound but do In Flames as a band still serve a sense of purpose? While Come Clarity had an almost industrial futuristic touch to its sound, A Sense Of Purpose is much more earthly be that with the occasional bleeps and samples. Anders still writes with the gritty passion he always has and that's none more evident than in Disconnected and Alias. One thing that features too often and not to any great pleasure is the regular placement of almost acoustic solos which strips down the In Flames sound to a weak stature. I'm The Highway sounds so Americanised its quite shocking, almost something As I Lay Dying have created but as the aforementioned has stated In Flames as… more »

Many have turned their back on In Flames, others have just discovered them but love or hate them, In Flames currently sit as one of the biggest bands in metal today. A Sense Of Purpose, they're ninth studio album, sees the band blatantly turn their back on their Melodic Death Metal routes for a more conventional metalcore sound but do In Flames as a band still serve a sense of purpose? While Come Clarity had an almost industrial futuristic touch to its sound, A Sense Of Purpose is much more earthly be that with the occasional bleeps and samples. Anders still writes with the gritty passion he always has and that's none more evident than in Disconnected and Alias. One thing that features too often and not to any great pleasure is the regular placement of almost acoustic solos which strips down the In Flames sound to a weak stature. I'm The Highway sounds so Americanised its quite shocking, almost something As I Lay Dying have created but as the aforementioned has stated In Flames as their biggest influence, maybe it should be the other way round. Move Through Me emulates that sound of nuclear night and sees In Flames revisit that industrial touch of their past which I personally love. Everything on here is done to a fine standard but fails to truly shock or impress you. In Flames' peak is a hard one to better and they're currently putting out fantastic songs but nothing to better the classics of they're past such as Only For The Weak, My Sweet Shadow and Pinball Map. Maybe by the time they're next album out A Sense Of Purpose will contain a classic In Flames anthem but at the moment its just another fine catalogue of songs from the metal pioneers that are In Flames.