Yeah, that Anders Bjorler, of At The Gates and The Haunted. Could it be that In Flames now has two men named Anders amongst their ranks?

That what the above picture, posted today on In Flames’ Facebook page, would seem to imply, as first reported by the stealthy Heavy Blog is Heavy. A cryptic but not really all that cryptic caption accompanied the photo:

Who’s this guy?

Now, we’re not ones to recklessly speculate… oh who am I kidding, of course we are! You may recall that longtime guitarist and founding member Jesper Stromblad departed In Flames last year to focus on treating his alcohol addiction, and that In Flames are currently in the studio recording a follow-up to 2008’s underwhelming A Sense of Purpose. So while it’s possible that Bjorler was just stopping into the studio to say hi, or just lent a guest solo to one track, it’s a lot more fun to think about the possibility of one legendary Swedish guitar player replacing another.

The histories of all of these bands are so intertwined that this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but still — Anders Bjorler in In Flames would be pretty frickin’ cool. His contributions to writing would likely be limited, or possibly even non-existent on this album, but still, Bjorler could be just the breath of fresh air In Flames need. The only chink in my argument’s armor is that The Haunted are also working on a new album right now… and it’d be hard to imagine anyone being able to tour with two bands at the level of In Flames and The Haunted at the same time.

You’ll know more as soon as we do.

-VN