IN FLAMES STUDIO FOOTAGE OFFERS AN EVER-SO-BRIEF TASTE OF NEW MUSIC

Even though I thought A Sense of Purpose was pretty lame, I’m not ready to feel too cynical about In Flames’ new album, Sounds of a Playground Fading. Soundtrack to Your Escape wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, either, but the band followed it up with Come Clarity, an album I really like (power ballad and all!)… my point being that IF can still turn it around. They’re not in Metallica/”Why even bother getting your hopes up?” territory yet.

Unfortunately, their new, in-the-studio video only has a little bit of new music, and while the riff sounds cool enough, it’s not nearly enough to make even a snap judgment upon. But go ahead and check it out and see what you think — the music shows up around the 3:20 mark. The rest of the video is pretty standard stuff which I didn’t find that exciting, but of course you’re free to watch the whole thing, too.

Oh, and apparently this was made by Anders Bjorler, which explains why he was in the studio with In Flames that time we got excited that he might be their new guitar player.

Sounds of a Playground Fading comes out June 21 on Century.

-AR