Review Summary: A heavy, melodic and aggressive In Flames album. Whoracle still makes you to think if the band is only a melodic metal band instead of a melodic death metal band.
In Flames, a melodic death metal band that has become one of the worlds greatest metal bands. Hailing from Sweden
In Flames alongside
At The Gates and
Dark Tranquillity took the world by storm with their melodic death metal or ‘’Gothenburg’’ sound as others call it. While bands like
Entombed,
Dismember and
Hypocrisy dominated the old-school fields of death metal
In Flames took melodies and mixed them into their material, which proved to be a very effective metal concoction. With time
In Flames has somewhat left the death metal field and is now considered as a modern rock band, and I agree with that. Personally I don’t think that even in their earlier days they didn’t sound like ‘’real’’ melodic death metal and why do I think that? Well, continue reading and I will tell you.
I would say that I am not one of those who follows the crowd, if thousand people likes
In Flames I would perhaps like a few songs here and there but not an entire album. My opinion changed when I got an album from one of my friends, the album I got is called
Whoracle. I had already experienced songs from
Clayman,
Reroute To Remain and
Come Clarity so I thought that there was a risk that
Whoracle would sound just the same. I was surprised actually, not by the actual music; it was the vocals that surprised me. Instead of super-raspy vocals these vocals were more harsh, thick and there was a desperate ‘’feel’’ to them.
This album felt more like a melodic death metal album just because of the harsh semi-growling vocals.
Whoracle is a very heavy, very melodic death metal album which has many catchy and heavy songs. The variety in the material is very nice; you have fast songs, slow and heavy songs, a ballad and one instrumental track.
Anders Fridén might not be one of my favourite metal vocalists but these sounds ten times better than the vocals he uses now.
Anders vocals sounds great, his aggressive semi-growls gives the music a better sound and depth. His vocals are good enough so he doesn’t need to have lots of variety in his vocal performance.
Jesper and
Glenn makes a decent but enjoyable guitar performance. You have lots of catchy melodic riffs, heavy chugga-chugga moments, some faster riffing sections and also some clean acoustics here and there. The only thing I miss is the tremolo riffs which I think are highly necessary if you are playing death or black metal. I can’t find many tremolo riffs in this album, perhaps a few moments during the melodic solos but those riffs are rare in this album.
Johan does not make any impressions with his bass, he follows the rhythm guitars and does not deliver any standout performances. A boring thing if you ask me, at least he adds a good sound to the guitars which creates a thick wall of sound.
Björn handles the drums without difficulties, here you have your ordinary selection of ‘’friendly’’ drum beats. Rhythmic and catchy patterns that sound more like heavy metal and not death metal, the drumming is pretty simplistic compared to the real deal so to say.
Everybody likes melodies more or less and I’m one of those who like melodies. I didn’t had a hard time to get used to this album, but it took me some time to listen it through since I’m not a huge fan to this band. Some things that I liked about this album were of course the vocals, very good vocals, way better than his new vocal style. Another thing I liked was the simplistic music, I think that this was not a mind blowing instrumental performance but it was enjoyable and well executed. Melodic and calm but still very heavy and quite aggressive, the variety was very good because none of the songs were similar to each other. The energy level was good; the songs didn’t feel too sloppy or too over exaggerated.
I like
Whoracle in almost every aspect but there was just two things that I think the band should’ve used. More tremolo riffing and faster technical drumming, these two things are highly necessary for both death metal and black metal. Tremolo riffs still doesn’t need to sound like black metal riffs, they could’ve played more tremolo riffs but they could’ve used melodies in them, like
Nightshade’s kind of music for example. The drumming would probably be the reason why so many people like the band, some people doesn’t even know that the band was once rooted in one of metals most extreme genres, death metal. If there was more fast double bass kicking and other types of technical drum patterns in this album then I would probably enjoyed even more.
I guess that was it, this was the best I could come up with so I hope that this review has been a helpful one. I think I will never enjoy
In Flames as much as I enjoy other melodic death metal bands, the reason why is that I still think that this band sounds more like a melodic metal band, not a melodic
death metal band. If I want to listen to
In Flames I would listen to their old stuff rather than their newest material. Any metal head should know of
In Flames, if you haven’t heard them before than get an album because this is a unique band that everyone likes, even if you don’t listen to metal you would probably like them anyway.
Whoralce might not be one of their greatest moments but it would be a good start for those who wants to get into their music.
Positives
+ Lots of melodies
+ Great variety of the songs material
+ A heavy and thick sound
+ Catchy material
Negatives
- The simplistic music makes this to sound as a melodic metal band
- More tremolo riffs and technical drumming should’ve been used
- Might get a bit boring with time
Personal Favourites
-- The Hive
-- Worlds Within The Margin
-- Jotun
-- Jester Script Transfigured
Heavy, melodic and aggressive, this album will be given a 3.5/5
