In Flames - The Jester Race
(Nuclear Blast, 1995)

With a force unseen since the prime of Metallica ten years before, In Flames come crashing in with their major label debut, heaving a mountainous inferno upon the unsuspecting metal fan from the depths of hell. That's pretty much how it felt to listen to the refreshing The Jester Race, which does for death metal what Metallica did for heavy metal in 1985 with Master Of Puppets. The twin leads on this album are amazingly intense, the type of axework that wills you to grab your air guitar in heavy metal tribute. This is highly evident on the incredible The Jester's Dance, a brilliant two-minute instrumental that takes the best of Iron Maiden and improves it ten-fold. Artifacts Of The Black Rain continues this metallic brilliance, as does Lord Hypnos, The Jester Race, Dear God In Me, and the patched together but still brilliant instrumental Wayfaerer, all surpassing any contemporary power metal act and a good deal of classic metal groups in both intensity and quality.

Everything here is pure metallic perfection, except for one minor detail. On later releases, Anders Frieden would add his distinct mix of atonal grindcore vocals and AC/DC-esque wail. However, on this early album, we must settle with Oscar Dronjak (soon to leave for Hammerfall) and his inhuman and slightly tiresome cookie monster vocal. While some may call it an accquired taste, and I've come to deal with it, after all this time the sound still bothers me. Nevertheless, if you can get past the difficult "singing", The Jester Race proves to be a classic nineties death metal record, the best at the time, and it would only get better from here.

Rating: 4/5