Whoracle

As a follow up to the absolute masterpiece that was The Jester Race, Whoracle had quite a task to live up to. That album (as you will know if you've read my review) just struck something with me, and I never thought they'd be able to match it, and honestly Whoracle doesn't. But, it's still an absolutely amazing album. The guitar work of Jesper Strömblad and Glenn Ljungström is still the focal point here, and they don't disappoint. Jotun alone contains enough timeless melodic guitar lines to satisfy me, but the whole album is packed with them.

The sound of the album is quite different to that of its predecessor. The sound is much clearer, and generally the songwriting has tightened up. The songs are fairly compact and distinct from each other, but unfortunately the production is just lacking that atmosphere that The Jester Race had. No doubt, some of the instruments (especially the acoustic guitars on Whoracle and Jester Script Transfigured) sound a lot better but the way it comes together just doesn't have that magic that The Jester Race did, but I wasn't expecting it to, so no matter.

If you're a fan of Dark Tranquillity, then this album is also definitely one you'll like, as there a few songs on Whoracle (most notably Worlds Within The Margin) as there are some moments which have that DT vibe going on. You could argue that since the two bands are closely linked and from the same scene, then they sound very similar anyway but I don't see it. Anyway, I digress.

Since the guitar work is most definitely the instrument that takes the limelight in this type of music, the other instruments can often go quite underappreciated. However, unlike most In Flames albums, I found the drumming on a lot of Whoracle to be quite average. While there aren't any points where you notice any bad drumming, it seems to be drumming-by-numbers for the most part which is disappointing considering how good Björn Gelotte's performance on The Jester Race was. That's not to say he doesn't have his moments, though. His drumming on Food For The Gods and the way it works with the bass and rhythm guitars is what makes that song so great and his simple tom work on the softer parts of the album sounds fantastic.

The most underappreciated instrument with In Flames though is undoubtedly the bass. While the bass parts aren't exactly outstanding from the guitar parts (ever), the sound of Johan Larsson's bass is really quite important to the sound of some of these riffs. A fine example would be Episode 666. The main riff is very much about the guitar, but without the bass it would not have nearly as much backbone as it does, and the power of that riff would be mostly lost. Note how that power is actually fairly absent from Everything Counts, a Depeche Mode cover, just because of a lesser bass presence.

That brings me onto the concept of the album. That's right, even a cover song is part of the concept of Whoracle, quite well placed as a sort of 'moral of the story' ending to the album. The album describes the life and crushing death of a society in a futuristic world. The concept was devised by vocalist Anders Fridén, but the lyrics were in fact written by Dark Tranquillity guitarist Niklas Sundin. I've got to say, the lyrics on Whoracle are better than the lyrics Anders writes himself, with a very nice balance between the traditional In Flames imagery and a dark edge. Unfortunately, however, there are still quite a lot of awkward lines that detract from the poetic nature of the lyrics. The song with one of the most interesting ideas (Episode 666, in which an apocalyptic event is televised) is in fact written the worst, with such lines as "Welcome here, the squirrel-wheel begins". I have no idea what that's meant to mean either. Overall though, the lyrics are very good and quite interesting to read.

What matters more than the lyrics, though, is how they're delivered and Anders does a solid job on this album. The first you hear of him on Jotun is in fact spoken word, and there's more of that on bits of the album, however it sounds poor. Sorry Anders, but you aren't John Haughm. It's not at all frequent enough to really care about though, as his growls on this album are strong. He can put the same kind of power into an immediate metal attack like Food For The Gods as well as he can into a slow-burner such as Gyroscope, and while I don't think his vocals here are the strongest he's done, they are certainly good enough.

So, even though I have pointed out a few flaws in Whoracle, they are all minor and the absolutely sublime guitar work on this album more than negates any problems the album could possibly have. While it doesn't quite compare to the perfect sound of The Jester Race, songs like Food For The Gods, Jotun and the beautiful Whoracle make this album an absolutely essential purchase.