Album Details

• Artist: In Flames
• Album: A Sense Of Purpose
• Label: Nuclear Blast
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: sinist3r-punk on 2008-11-29

"A Sense of Purpose" is In Flames 9th studio release and is only the 2nd album to have a parental advisory sticker slammed on the front. While I don't own any other In Flames albums, I kept my eyes and ears open to allow everyone's input to gather in the melting pot before diving in and giving my two cents.

After listening to this album repeatedly I keep coming back to one thing. Every song sounds exactly the same. In Flames is very talented, but they never harness the energy that is within their reach. In Flames just sounds like they were bored out of their minds in the recording studio and never put any part of themselves into this album. Imagine if Killswitch Engage just sat in the studio while they recorded "Daylight Dies" and just didn't care how it sounded and they were fine with only the first takes. It would sound something like this. Just bored and repetitive. In Flames just seems to be fine with the bare minimum on this album. They could have really done something with "A Sense of Purpose" if they had just put more energy and power in it. I think SolitaryMan put it best in his review of the EP. "It's like Metallica all over again" and he is absolutely right. Maybe this album was just rushed and they just didn't care about the emotionality or the epics that metal was founded on.

I'll try not to be completely negative and just say that "I'm the Highway" is one of the stand-out tracks. It has a memorable riff and the drums don't sound repeated as in other songs. Most of the songs on "A Sense of Purpose" are capable of being a lot more hard hitting and awesome if they had just waited a little while and tweaked each of the songs.

Like I said before, I don't own any other In Flames albums, but I get the vibe from this one and from reading other reviews that In Flames is capable of a lot more than they put into this album, but for some reason they just chose to sit back and expect the fans to go crazy over it. After listening to "A Sense of Purpose" I think I will just cut my losses and try to find some redeeming factors in "Colony" or "Reroute to Remain."

User Reviews and Comments

on 2008-04-03 SolitaryMan Said:

I've heard the Mirror's Truth EP (review's up on it's page), and it didn't make me particularly hopeful for Sense of Purpose. I have real trouble not expecting more from In Flames, the same band who gave me absolute staples of my collection (Clayman, Reroute to Remain) and has only gotten more and more away from what made them so good in the first place.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2008-04-01 big brekfest Said:

Where Meshuggahs latest album, Obzen, is a tangible manifestation of the virtues of Metal today, In Flames A Sense of Purpose, is a tired lake-bed dredging of the genres most mediocre attributes. The Swedish quintet seems to be a band in complacency; a band that is stuck between the need to please stalwart metal fanatics who care little for growth in the genre and the need to evolve, as a means to continued relevancy.

A Sense of Purpose culls the same depths as their previous releases, which should please existing fans to some measure, but new listeners will most certainly hear an album that theyve heard before. In Flames have become a victim of their own success; becoming eclipsed by the throngs of pseudo-melodic metal bands who are able to bend the genre better than In Flames is able to.

The impeccable production of the album does little to help the song craft. A Sense of Purpose has anything but and is filled with rote, uninspired riffs, clunky meandering melodies and contemptibly boring climaxes.

Of the few highlights on the disk, such as the bombastic opening track The Mirrors Truth and Sober and Irrelevant, any goodwill created by the band is scattered to the four winds with Friedens painful lyrical touch. This is, not doubt, summed up with a line from Disconnected, I Feel Like Shit/ But At Least I Feel Something. It was a tired sentiment when Korn was spitting the same sad-clown attitude and it feels just as disingenuous here.

A Sense of Purpose is neither adventurous nor innovative. It fails to catapult In Flames forward remotely close to the cutting edge and is a tepid, mediocre metal album lacking the dynamic punch or meaty hooks required to be relevant and notable in metal outside of the Headbangers Ball set.

With a number of stellar, high-profile genre releases already this year, metal fans can skip this one and save space on their iPod for something

Not Rated