Lunar Strain in Bloomington, MN

Just about any genre or style of music has had skillful crossover artists who managed to win won over some nonbelievers.
Grover Washington, Jr.
's tasteful
jazz-funk
reached a lot of people who hadn't necessarily developed a taste for the straight-ahead
bop
of
Clifford Brown
and
Sonny Stitt
;
Willie Nelson
's
country-pop
reached a lot of listeners who weren't necessarily into the hardcore
honky tonk
Buck Owens
Lefty Frizzell
. And in the
metal
world,
In Flames
has served as a bridge between the
death metal/black metal
underground and the more melodic
power metal
Iron Maiden
,
Judas Priest
, and
Queensryche
. Originally released in Europe in 1994,
' debut album,
Lunar Strain
, attracted an interesting mixture of
thrash
enthusiasts. Like the early releases of
At the Gates
helped write the book on what came to be known as "melodic
death metal
" -- an approach that combines
elements (extreme vocals, blastbeats) with the type of intricacy, musicality, and craftsmanship one expects from old-school masters like
Dio
Maiden
Priest
Black Sabbath
. Most
favors brutality for the sake of brutality, but
does not govern by brute force alone and is -- by
standards -- much more accessible than the albums that extreme bands like
Cannibal Corpse
Deicide
Carcass
were coming out with at the time. In 1994, the best was yet to come for
; even so, this was a promising debut that had a major impact on melodic
symphonic black metal
. ~ Alex Henderson