Three years after the amazing “Winter’s Gate” (a unique audacious album where they took the risk to compose one 40’ long track) the Finns return with a new album with the usual flow of a –no concept- album and this way they overcome the obstacle of comparing this album with the previous one.
All that we loved on INSOMNIUM is here, catchy rhythms, lot of melody, powerful choruses, clean and brutal vocals, they seemed to me they act like a band from A category and the composition seems a piece of cake in their case while the addition of Jani Liimantainen (ex Sonata Arctica) that gives an extra melodic tone although it’s not really noticeable they now have three guitars on board.
Although one or two tracks could be a bit shorter listening the album is really enjoyable as there is good variety (inside their style of course, don’t look here for avant-garde progressive rock/metal) that works perfect as you can easily hear both faces of band’s songwriting: fast songs (like “Neverlast” and “The Offering”) but also slow ones (like the beautiful “And Bells They Toll”) or mid tempo (like the epic melancholic “Heart of a Grave”, check also the video they made for this one). Ok, the truth is that I felt that somehow they walked through safe paths (although “Pale Morning Star” is more than enough with its freeform bag full of interesting riffing and rhythm changes) but at the end of the album (just after the instrumental “Karelia 2049”) I had no problem to repeat the listening again and again, so yes, the conclusion is positive…
