Year: 2019
Total Time: 60:56
Label: Whale Records
Eighth full-length album for the Finnish aces of melodic Death Metal. For several years now, INSOMNIUM has been one of the leading bands in the melodic Death Metal scene, enriching their melancholic sound with some of the most extreme elements. That’s why we know them, that’s why we love them.
With Jani Liimatainen (ex-Sonata Arctica) this time on guitar as an addition, we have a much richer and fuller sound. The lead vocals are complemented by Nilo Sevänen’s Jani (Liimatainen) and Ville Friman’s melodic voices.
Having released ‘Winter’s Gate’ in 2016, with a slightly different sound, they return to their more familiar sound with ‘Heart Like A Grave’. Almost the whole disc is what INSOMNIUM is known for. It makes you feel melancholic, but it also gives you that extreme feeling, with the one complementing the other. A nine-minute “Pale Morning Star” is their try to next level their sound. Constant passages between acoustic to heavier paths, with melodic piano, and back to a heavier sound. This track contains everything and then some.
The album features some more classical tracks, such as “Valediction”, which comes second, after the melodic opener “Wall Of The North”. The second track of the album, “Valediction”, is one of the album’s “singles” and contains both views of their sound. The “beauty”, but also the “beast”. The feelings you feel, while hearing the album are so many. “Neverlast”, a piece that is a catchup of the melodic Death Metal of the old school, in today’s shape. Fast, sharp riffs, melodic choruses, a terrific brutal voice by Nilo, with a melodic a-la Iron Maiden double guitar solo and then an acoustic part to give way to the more extreme bridge, which then moves to the melodic chorus. Just as we would imagine melodic death metal of today, a decade and a half ago. I have to admit that I believe this track will be a trademark for the melodic Death Metal scene from now on. Not as something innovative, but just the opposite. As a piece that looks back and executes the task perfectly. We talked about the epic “Pale Morning Star” earlier. It’s basically a track that will be a turning point for the idiom from now on. This track is a real epic. A technical song. We really love this idiom when a brutal voice “walks” on beautiful solos, small melodic and melancholic solos? The answer is obvious. INSOMNIUM goes a step further in this track, and more than successful! Many different guitar solos, one impressive big solo, and so many diversity in their sound during this track. We have to say it, and it’s no exaggeration. One of their best and most complete songs ever written. Then we can hear, as expected, some lower tempo songs and then the tempo gets faster again. Special mention should be made on the riffs that contain some incredible melodies, in songs such as “The Offering” or “Mute Is My Sorrow”. “Heart Like A Grave” is another track- single and perfectly describes INSOMNIUM. Amazing. Causes some chills running down the spine. And finally, an instrumental “Karelia”, which is written for the homonymous landscape, which is of exceptional beauty and beauty. Both the landscape, and the song.
When an album contains so many tracks that are all that great and give you the impression that one is better than the other, you can’t find words to accurate describe your emotions. INSOMNIUM, at this album, do what they know perfectly well, and in some tracks, they do more. Definitely one of the albums of the year (if not the album of the year) in its idiom. Well done, well done, WELL DONE!
Rating: 8,5/10
George Kourouleas
Related Link: INSOMNIUM – Official Page
