#anders friden

only for the weak 🔥🤘

The Jester Race birthed a new approach to metal while nobody was paying attention, and perhaps without really trying: melodic death metal had arguably been sort of a thing for at least a couple years, but In Flames’ second full-length crafted something distinct and identifiable, and because almost all of the bands that propagated this sound veered towards more accessible tones within 5 years it remained singular.  “Artifacts of the Black Rain” emphasized the point that the harmony leads and traditional metal textures existed in context and functioned less as a counterpoint to the otherwise harsh and extreme underground metal structures and worked more as augmentation- Fredrik Nordström’s production was in-your-face and slathered crunching guitars over wet and pummeling drums, and Anders Fridén’s irascible croak wasn’t trying to please anyone’s ears, but even so the winding leads from Jesper Strömblad and Glenn Ljungström were cleanly woven into the fabric of the song’s architecture, and what jumps out nearly 30 years later is that for all the talk at the time of the guitars being Maiden-esque, there is a lot more Judas Priest in here, which made sense since Painkiller had a massive long tail impact on European metal.  “Artifacts of the Black Rain” showed the genre still had plenty of life left, and reminded everyone that heavy metal marches ever forward in sweaty basements and clubs.

(All photographers and/or sources in the image descriptions)

Happy 49th birthday Anders Friden! (March 25th, 1973)

Winnipeg, Canada

6. Kate Nash and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir (Of Monsters and Men)

favorite lyrics from 2019 albums i like ↳ i, the mask // in flames