Band:	In Flames
Album:	Clayman
Style:	Alternative metal, Gothenburg metal
Release date:	July 19, 2000
A review by:	Dream Taster

01. Bullet Ride
02. Pinball Map
03. Only For The Weak
04. ...As The Future Repeats Today
05. Square Nothing
06. Clayman
07. Satellites And Astronauts
08. Brush The Dust Away
09. Swim
10. Suburban Me
11. Another Day In Quicksand
12. World Of Promises [bonus] [Treat cover]
13. Strong And Smart [bonus] [No Fun At All cover]

Melodic Death Metal band In Flames returned in 2000 with a splendid rage materialized in the album Clayman. After the wonderful Colony, the Swedish band are back with a powerful release full of hits! Same line-up, but a slightly different recording sound, even more based on the tremendous guitar work of both Jesper Stromblad and Bjorn Gelotte. Anders Friden [vocals] is at his best level on this album from the first note to the last and the duo Peter Iwers [bass] / Daniel Svensson [dums] provide a strong rhythm background.

On Clayman, each track is something else but the highlights are clearly the raw 'Pinball Map' and the more melodic 'Only For The Weak'. My personal favorites are 'Square Nothing', with its acoustic beginning and 'Suburban Me'. But as I've said before, all these tracks are gorgeous. The cover 'World Of Promises' kicks serious ass and the lucky Japanese metalheads can listen to even more material [the usual Japanese bonus track...] with 'Strong And Smart', which could be totally part of the album as a "regular track".

However, even if the album totally rules from beginning to end, I still prefer their previous album, Colony, for a simple reason: Clayman is less diversified. For example, '...As The Future Repeats Today', despite the fact that it is a great song, sounds similar to 'Only For The Weak' in my opinion. Same thing with the duo 'Swim' and 'Brush The Dust Away'. But that remains a small drawback and it doesn't lower the musical quality of Clayman.

In one word, Clayman is terrific, even if it can appear "out of the path" for Death Metal fans addicted to the early works of the band. It could be labeled as "The Bible for Melodic Death" and that's obviously the album you have to pick to discover In Flames, even though some would prefer their previous effort Colony.