doublewhat wrote:
The first two releases, Lunar Strain and Subterranean, have thrash and older death metal elements. The original version of Dead Eternity and both versions of Lunar Strain are as thrashy as you can get. Behind Space has blast beats. The best mix of extreme and melody are in the first two albums.
By the The Jester Race came along, the extreme metal component was toned down in favour of heavy metal + death vocals (ther than the song "Graveland").
By the time Clayman came out, it was Nu-metal shouting and bouncy riffs to form a proto-Metalcore album.
I'd say In Flames' two most influential albums were Jester Race and Clayman. Jester Race was the archetypal Melodic Death Metal album.
A lot of people jumped on the In Flames band wagon when Clayman came out (I suspect some of them formed Metalcore bands)