INSOMNIUM – Shadows of the Dying Sun
- Posted on 02-05-2014
The sixth album from Finland’s answer to both In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, does not disappoint. The guys deliver the hooks and offer few surprises, and it is those surprises that elevate it above another Insomnium release. Particularly fantastic is the downright black metal "Black Heart Rebellion", infectious and angry as all get out, as my ex-love would say.
You want true love? Check out "While We Sleep" (and the great video!) with the tender lyric "We need to slow down so I can catch you, I need to slow down so you can catch me",with its smart absence of "you" blame application, featuring a gorgeous tearjerking melody. Curious to find a chorus dirge that competes with the best Insomnium has to offer? Look no further that the most gorgeous "Lose to Night" with clean vocals of sprawled gently over a heartfelt melody line. Miss the melodic madness of "Above the Weeping World"? "Ephemeral", slightly if at all altered from the last year’s so titled ep, is your ticket to bliss. If misery is one, that is, as this is not music for happy folks. This is sadness on sadness supported by sadness. But if you’re bipolar like me, you’ll "dig it and bag it", to quote this asshole womanizer r&b song I heard at the haircut place the other day. Or maybe calling women "it" while using a scale of 1-10 to describe their worth is cool when you’re younger than 39? That’s gotta be it, I must be too old to be "hip" like that.
Love Insomnium? Buy this. I will. It’s a great record. There are signs that this well, as is the inevitable and necessary fate of all melodic metal wells, may, too, be up for some fresh water supply (The Promethean Song) but by then I trust Niilo Sevänen and company will offer something minblowingly refreshing in a way of a curveball. "One for Sorrow" is a better record, but let us rejoice in Insomnium’s new work for it still deserves it.