Tuesday Top 3

1. In Flames - Sounds Of A Playground Fading

2. Axegressor - Next

3. The 69 Eyes - Back In Blood

In Flames - Sounds Of A Playground Fading

Sweden seems to be the cradle of good music these days. Today the album to prove my point is Sounds Of A Playground Fading from In Flames. Influences from Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath can be heard from the very first track, the guitar in the beginning of the song makes one almost certain that Bruce Dickinson starts singing soon enough. But even though the influences from those bands are strong, In Flames has a distinguish sound of its own. And this Swedish band has grown famous throughout the world as well. Making sure the success continues the band has gotten a song on the Guitar Hero III game, a song on the Canadian billboard top 200 as high position as number 7, a great amount of different awards and lately their song Deliver Us from their latest album has been playing constantly on radios.

The band was formed in 1990 and it has been evolving both member wise and musically. Members have been coming and going (Niclas Engeling, nowadays a full-time member) and they've switched from one instrument to another (Björn Gelotte, from drums to guitar) but at least for now it seems the band has found its line-up for good. Hopefully so, because it seems the band has been more than lucky not to break up during all the changes and yet somehow managed to gain success.

I haven't been a huge fan of In Flames before but I'm getting to that direction slowly. This album will probably end to my collection at some point and not least because I like the choises for their cover art (Dave Correia/Sounds Of A Playground Fading and Derek Hess/Come Clarity).

http://www.inflames.com/

http://www.myspace.com/inflames