Lunar Strain

Lunar Strain is the debut album by Swedish melodic death metal band In Flames.

It is the only album not to feature Anders Fridén on vocals. Instead vocals were sung by Mikael Stanne, who is currently the vocalist of Dark Tranquillity and was a session musician for In Flames at the time. He had sung with this band previously on “Demo ’93”. Coincidentally Fridén was the original vocalist for Dark Tranquillity and he effectively traded places with Stanne in 1995.

The album is known for its “folky elements” with the inclusion of violins and acoustic guitars.

The songs “Behind Space” & “Clad in Shadows” were rerecorded with the future lineup of this bands’ future release Colony – the songs were released on the album, although both songs were renamed with ’99 at the end of the titles and both songs ended up on different version of the album with “Behind Space ’99” on the standard and “Clad in Shadows ’99” on the reissue. “Clad in Shadows ’99” was also released on another reissue of this band’s future album, Whoracle.