There is in Insomnium a gravity that belongs to them alone. Since the late 1990s, the Finnish quartet have cultivated a melodic death metal in which speed and fury readily yield to contemplation, to nostalgia, to that Nordic sense of melancholy. Anno 1696, an eighth album accompanied by a short story written by bassist Niilo Sevänen, offers its most accomplished expression in years.
The critics, won over (an 82 average across eight reviews), hail a conceptual work that avoids the pitfalls of the genre. Set in a seventeenth-century Finland gnawed by famine and witch trials, the record weaves a dark narrative that the music espouses with remarkable accuracy. Praise goes to the breadth of the arrangements, the beauty of the guitar melodies, the balance between aggression and lyricism.
Musically, Insomnium master the art of mounting tension. The glacial tremolos, the twin harmonies inherited from the Gothenburg scene, the almost cinematic soars combine with a cavernous growl and a few judiciously placed clean passages. The production, crystalline without being sanitised, serves this narrative ambition.
The record does not always escape a certain uniformity of climate: by dint of cultivating the same twilight hue, Insomnium risk tiring the listener little inclined toward melancholy. The tracks, long and dense, demand attentive listening and do not yield at first pass. Such is the price of a demanding work.
Verdict: 8/10. A rich, immersive record confirming Insomnium among the masters of contemporary melodic death metal. A fresco to be savoured over time.
