Colony

Day Five. This is another band I got into because of a video game. Think I was a freshmen in high school when I played some Tony Hawk. It was Underground or 4. There's so many of them that I can't tell the difference. Anyways, "Embody the Invisible" was one of the songs on there (An Entombed song was also present: "To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth"). It took me a while to get past the cookie monster vocals to get in to proper death metal, but In Flames was terrific bridge towards the more extreme bands. They frequently categorize In Flames as "Melodic Death Metal", but honestly, it's just traditional heavy metal with raspy vocals. Or, as some people hilariously put it, Iron Maiden with Laryngitis.

Jokes aside, Colony is a great album. It doesn't try to be technical, brutal, fast, or even particularly deep and meaningful (although the lyrics are pretty good). It's just a great, catchy, and hard rocking album you can bang your head to. I'm not familiar with Swedish culture, but I get the impression that those infectious melodies are somehow related to Swedish folk music. Wherever they come from, it is impossible to get them out of your head.

I actually learned how to play half this album on guitar; solos and everything. I actually learned some valuable scale runs and riffing techniques from learning how to play this album. The riffs are great exercises for those that want to transition into harder guitar music. I actually kind of owe my badass guitar abilities to In Flames from learning how to play many of their songs.

Fun fact: The song that's the most fun to play is Gyroscope. But it's not on this album. Scorn is probably the most fun to play from here. Or maybe Coerced Coexistence.

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