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 of
Buck Owens and
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 of
Iron Maiden,
Judas Priest, and
Queensryche. Originally released in Europe in 1994,
In Flames' debut album,
Lunar Strain, attracted an interesting mixture of
death metal/black metal,
power metal, and
thrash metal enthusiasts. Like the early releases of
At the Gates,
Lunar Strain helped write the book on what came to be known as "melodic
death metal" -- an approach that combines
death metal elements (extreme vocals, blastbeats) with the type of intricacy, musicality, and craftsmanship one expects from old-school masters like
Dio,
Maiden,
Priest, and
Black Sabbath. Most
death metal favors brutality for the sake of brutality, but
Lunar Strain does not govern by brute force alone and is -- by
power metal standards -- much more accessible than the albums that extreme bands like
Cannibal Corpse,
Deicide, and
Carcass were coming out with at the time. In 1994, the best was yet to come for
In Flames; even so, this was a promising debut that had a major impact on melodic
death metal and
symphonic black metal. ~ Alex Henderson
![Human [Deluxe LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0781676716517_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Human [Deluxe LP]")
