Whoracle

Although many will argue that THE JESTER RACE is the band's best album, or perhaps even the debut, I always point to WHORACLE as my favorite. I think it's their most consistant and it's the album that I keep coming back to the most.

While many have said the songs on this album sound the same, repeated listens reveal just how intricate some of the songs actually are. This is not an album that you can memorize on a dozen listens... each time I put it on, I discover nuances in some of the songs I never noticed before, which in my opinion is a true testament to this albums brilliance.

"Jotun" is a song and a half, and deserves it's own paragraph in itself... it's THAT good. This was the first song I ever heard from In Flames, and I consider it to be the best thing they've ever written (easily one of the very best of the decade). The famous guitar riff on this song is nothing short of intoxicating, and the song never fails to impress me whenever I listen to it.

"Food for the Gods" is another great song with some absolutely killer thrash riffs. "Gyroscope" is one of the more brilliant songs on this album (although, truth be told, they're all fantastic), and perhaps the best representation of what In Flames were about... the song alternates between heavy guitars and fantastic acoustic work. The riffs to "The Hive" are very addicting, and it's hard NOT to get them stuck in your head when you listen to it. The band slows things down with "Worlds Within the Margin," without sacrificing Friden's screaming vocals, to a strange effect, and "Episode 666" is the heaviest track on the album!

The last two tracks on the album deserve special merit, I think, in that they help to illustrate the greatness of this band. The first is a cover of Depeche Mode's "Everything Counts," and In Flames handles it brilliantly... The semi-sung chorus works great in contrast to the harsh-sounding verses! The last song on WHORACLE, the all too brief title track, has the band experimenting with acoustic guitars again, and the inclusion of a female singer helps considerably... It's a haunting and effective epilogue to an amazing album...

This is arguably the peak of In Flames' career... the band never really came close to achieving the brilliance that they captured on this album (although the underrated CLAYMAN came the closest). WHORACLE, along with JESTER RACE, are among the greatest metal albums that anyone's ever released, and you would be doing yourself a great disservice by not picking them up... They manage to display the melodic harmonies of Iron Maiden's best work alongside the brutal intensity of death metal. The secret to this album's success, though, is the songwriting... It's the closest to perfection that you can possibly get.