The Jester Race - In Flames (1996)

As I’ve said, I spent a lot of the 90s thinking I was too cool for metal. Basically, if it came out between The Black Album and the first SOAD, I didn’t know anything about it.

I’m not sure that a record like this would have changed my mind, but it has a lot of the things I’d loved about metal when I was younger, mixed with a more modern approach that might have helped me figure a way into it.

It’s got a lot of familiar points from late-80s metal: huge riffs, melodic guitar solos, and tempos that a person can comprehend without having to slow down the tape. The clean guitar parts build up to the ferocious parts, as you might expect. The vocals are full-on death metal growly-voice (the technical term, I think), so you don’t get a lot of lyrical or vocal detail, but you can’t have everything.

I enjoyed going through this, though I don’t suppose it’s suddenly going to go into heavy rotation.

Tracks I Liked

Artifacts of the Black Rain, Graveland, and Dead Eternity are standouts, but take your pick.