In Flames - Trigger EP
Nuclear Blast
In Flames Metal
5 songs (17:24)
Release year: 2003
In Flames, Nuclear Blast
Reviewed by Jay

Before the name-calling and accusations take place in the comments, know this. I love In Flames. I love everything they’ve released from Lunar Strain to Reroute to Remain. That said, it is probably going to come as no surprise that I liked the Trigger EP. However, I don’t like it just because the music is good. I like it because In Flames understands how to put out a good EP. You’ll find a good EP few and far between. Cradle of Filth did it, Skyfire did it, and Lacuna Coil did it among others. These EPs have one or two new songs, a cover, a remix or two and then something unexpected.

The opening song on the album is the edit version of “Trigger.” About 50 seconds of the song has been cut out for this edit. Most notable is the melodic solo section in the middle of the song. While I liked this part of the song a lot, I understand for time reasons why it was cut. Yes, cutting the solo out does make them similar to nu vomit bands that are out today but such is life and we have to deal with it. It would be interesting to see what would happen if nu metal did not exist and In Flames cut out a solo for time reasons. The next song is a new song called “Watch Them Feed.” The opening is very fast but the guitar is way detuned and while the music is good, I wish that the guitars would be tuned normally and the chords could be more melodic. The chorus has Anders using his clean voice again. It is more melodic but the keyboard and not the guitars provide this melody. The solo is pure In Flames and reminded me of the solo on “Graveland.” The song is a fast one and I’d like to see this one live. I never thought that I’d hear Genesis and In Flames mentioned in the same sentence but here we are. The cover of “Land of Confusion” is great. I questioned why they chose Genesis to cover and then I realized that we’re all children of the 80’s (well most of us are) and this is the music that we grew up with. Anders gives new meaning to the lyrics while Daniel does amazing things with the double bass on this song. The choruses are classic In Flames and remind me of the older style melodeath they popularized. Surprisingly there are no keyboard parts considering that this song was almost entirely synthesizer when it was first recorded.

Skip track four. It’s a club remix of “Cloud Connected.” If you ever go to a rave club, request this song but it’s not good enough to listen to alone. If you can’t resist, just pull out Reroute to Remain and listen to track five. The final song is “Moonshield” the C64 Karaoke Version. For those who know and for those who don’t, C64 stands for Commodore 64, one of the first home computers. The C64 had a chip inside it called the Sound Interface Device or SID for short. It has become the darling of home techno musicians because it can reproduce amazing music; music that is often hard to do on contemporary equipment. With modern emulation, the chip’s functions can be accessed through any PC. I don’t know if In Flames themselves programmed this song or if someone outside the band did it but it is a faithful reproduction of “Moonshield” sans vocals. It is just a nice thing to throw on an album as a gift to the fans. Very impressive and awesome effort.

In Flames have made a nice EP here. If you do get it, be sure to get the version that has the bonus DVD with the videos for “Trigger” and “Cloud Connected” on it.

Killing Songs :
Land of Confusion, Watch Them Feed
Jay quoted no quote
Other albums by In Flames that we have reviewed:
In Flames - Sounds Of A Playground Fading reviewed by Khelek and quoted 55 / 100
In Flames - A Sense Of Purpose reviewed by Chris and quoted 86 / 100
In Flames - Colony reviewed by Dylan and quoted 95 / 100
In Flames - The Jester Race reviewed by Adam and quoted CLASSIC
In Flames - Come Clarity reviewed by Jason and quoted 95 / 100
To see all 13 reviews click here
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