It might be a little late for making a topic like this, but it came to my mind.
Someone finally made HammerFall fan club Serbia. And there's a forum, where we were discussing Infected, and I suddenly wondered:
Would the latest HammerFall album be a lot different if they never changed their producer?
Infected is, in all ways, a little bit weaker than the previous HammerFall albums. And I was thinking, and came to a conclusion that it's because of the change of producer. This is why: their first three albums were recorded by any means, they were just beginning and trying to make stuff any way they could. These albums marked HF with something, gave them that element that made their music recognizable. Then, from Crimson Thunder (which is definitely their best and most successful album) all to No Sacrifice, No Victory, their producer was Charlie Bauerfeind, who was just giving their music more energy and quality, but was prolonging their style and pushing it forward. Anyway, let's assume that the change was finally needed (after all, in my opinion, comparing to other three albums with Charlie, No Sacrifice, No Victory lost a little bit of energy). But why James?
Even in one of these live-chats, Joacim mentioned how James is (a great guy, blah, blah), but wasn't really pushing him forward hard enough. He sometimes, after recording of some vocal part, told Joacim that it was amazing, great, and Joacim knew it was not true. I mean, James seems like a producer who cares about fame and his name more than his work really. He worked with famous bands, imagine that, and now half of the world knows about him, but how he really does his job? Not too good, I think.
I might not be the one to judge. But some major changes on Infected, comparing to other albums, are his suggestions. He might lead HF to its doom. Okay, don't take all of this too seriously, guy might be completely okay.
But, parts of Infected were self-produced. Pontus has a lot of knowledge in that area. He might be able to help them to completely make a self-produced album as their next. In fact, I hope for that, because if everyone on the side would simply let them be and do things on their own, HammerFall might come back to what they once were... Maybe.