First - I (Josh) LOVE official metal videos. They are always great or embarrassingly badgreat. I have two for you.
Artifacts of the Black Rain - Great song! OK video.
The Jester Race - I don't know if this is an official video or not. The quality is very very very bad, but maybe it was recorded off of TV, maybe from MTV2 when it would have been on the air, maybe by a hand held camcorder in like 1998. That's what it looks like anyway. I don't know if it's really official.
So, quick, less fancy review, because I listened to this on Friday, and it's not Sunday, and the intense emotions I had at the time have faded.
Moonsheild - fine song, overrated, on the slow side, but not bad. I liked it.
The Jester's Dance - track two is the wrong place for an instrumental that feels long. BOOOO!
What follows are a bunch of really great songs. Fast, aggressive, blazing with In Flames' signature style and a little more belly-fire than me, as a frequent Whoracle listener, might expect.
Artifacts of the Black Rain - killer!
Graveland - fucking baller! I should cover this song with Goat Thrower!
Lord Hypnos - always forget about this song. Just great!
Dead Eternity - it's been well established that I like this song, and this version is fine, too.
The Jester's Race - Sweet tune, but more on this later...
December Flower - I don't know how long it's since I listened to this song, but that solo! Holy cow! I got to the solo and had an instant and all encompassing sense-memory of the last time I listened to that solo! Like, in another life, I was obsessed with that solo. High-point of the this record is the December Flower solo!
Wayfaerer - Is it spelled that way because their Swedish? Or because of a typo, and if so, is there a version of the album where it's corrected? Or because, spelled that way, it means something different, or utilizes some archaic, cooler spelling. Is "ae," in this case, a diphthong? This is a better place for an instrumental. This is twice the length of the Jester's Dance, but it felt shorter. Weird right?
Dead God In Me - I know I said that Inborn Lifeless was better, but I don't know, now. I was amped for this and it really hit me in the just the right way. I may be a convert to this version, although the crying-baby break in the middle is lame. It really (I know I say this alot) kills the momentum. Funny story - I had computer, when I was in college, and "System Error" sound was the "CHUG CHUG AHHHHHH!" sound.
My version has bonus tracks - the studio tracks of Black Ash Inheritance. Gyroscope is fine - not my favorite Whoracle track, and for some reason, I feel like it's a little played out.
I love the acoustic medley. I learned to play it years ago. Maybe it's my favor instrumental track ever.
Goliath's Disarm Their Davids... great song. it's very much In Flames being In Flames, right? Urban Dictionary actually references it was maybe In Flames' best song, and to me, it's a clear precursor of their magnum opus, Colony.
But...
For years - like YEARS. Like probably a decade or more - up until Friday afternoon - I was convinced that Goliaths Disarm Their Davids was a re-recording of Jester Race. I can't explain it. I really thought that the "And we go... and we go" part from Jester happened in Goliaths, as well. I had convinced myself that the intros were the same, but one had effects. In my mind, the main riffs were basically recycled.
It's not. Goliaths Disarm Their Davids is great, and clearly, I see now that I'm a crazy person.
But I have clear memories of thinking, condescendingly, "Jeez - the just re-record and retitle a title track! Who does that?!" and later, when I bought the album, I BOUGHT THE PHYSICAL ALBUM and still thought "who are these asshats, putting both versions on the song on the same release" So strong was this, false (maybe implanted? Reptilians, I'm looking at you) memory, that in my car, on Friday, I listened the two songs back to back, and had this smug thought like, "ha! I'm gonna call them out on this shit! Listen two these two songs, clearly the same thing!" Meaning that the like 30% of my attention I was paying to sitting in rush hour traffic was enough to blind me to the truth.
Needless to say, I got home, actually listened to the two tracks, had a minor crisis of faith and tumbled, ass-over-tea-kettle, into a gaping psychic schism, as a decade of presumption crumbled into the sea, ultimately leaving me with a vacant queasy feeling akin, to having just been told you were adopted.
It was that bad.
4 out of 5 goats. I recommended this album. And Goliaths Disarm There Davids, which I now recognize as a great song.
No comments:
Post a Comment