Anniversaries do funny things to people. I’ve never quite understood the fuss about birthdays, mainly because mine usually makes me think about everything I haven’t achieved in the previous 12 months. Other people, though, fully embrace these milestones.
Insomnium are clearly among the latter. Reaching their tenth album has prompted a little reflection, a look through the archives and a return towards what guitarist Markus Vanhala describes as their “classic northern melancholy”. Fellow guitarist and clean vocalist Ville Friman has talked about adopting a “Best Of” philosophy, and you can hear what he means. There’s a sense throughout “Netherworlds” of a band gathering together everything that makes them special, then seeing where else it might take them.
“The Cold Song” sets the scene. It sounds like an Arctic blast, grandiose and forbidding, the sort of opening that makes you feel you should probably put another layer on before proceeding. Then “Shadowlife” arrives, and my goodness, there’s menace in Niilo Sevänen’s growl. Yet when the vocals suggest that “hope will prevail”, there’s something to hold on to amid the darkness.
That balance is crucial. “Remembrance” offers another reminder that, however much is going on in an Insomnium song, it’s always surprising how accessible it all feels. There are layers to explore, but the melodies give you a way in immediately. You don’t need to have worked out every detail to feel the impact.
“Gleam in the Black” makes everything sound so important. There’s a weight to this music that goes beyond how heavy the guitars are, a sense that every passage matters. “The Hour Grows Late”, meanwhile, is enormous. An epic in the proper sense, it takes you on a real journey, with the changes in atmosphere giving its scale a purpose. By the time it’s finished, you feel you’ve travelled somewhere.
“Arch of the Sky” carries that feeling forward. “I will never die alone” is the declaration, while the music has a distinctly progressive feel, moving between its moods with considerable assurance. It’s ambitious stuff, but again, the song remains at the heart of it.
Sevänen’s reading of poetry in both Finnish and English helped inspire the lyrics here, which perhaps explains why these songs feel so steeped in something timeless. Love, death and memory give the music its emotional weight, and there’s plenty of room for your own reflections within them.
For all the looking back, though, there’s change too. This is guitarist Tomy Laisto’s full-length studio debut with the band, and he sounds entirely at home alongside Vanhala and Friman. “Pathways of the Night” begins with a proper metal gallop, as if to remind everyone what three guitarists can get up to, with Markus Hirvonen providing the force behind them.
“Ethereal Sleep” is menacing in a different way. You can almost picture the mist closing in through the forest, the surroundings becoming less familiar with every step. Then “The Banished” explodes with a force that is genuinely frightening. Whatever else they’ve explored along the way, Insomnium haven’t misplaced their capacity to sound absolutely ferocious.
Which makes “Journey’s End” all the more effective. The calm after the storm in many ways, it feels like the credits rolling as the story reaches its conclusion. “Do not weep for me now, do not shed a tear,” comes the whisper, and there’s a strange comfort in it after everything that’s gone before.
And if they’re reflecting, then let us reflect too. We talk about Sweden a lot, and rightly so, given the sheer number of brilliant bands it produces. But Finland deserves its share of that conversation. There are only around 5.7 million people there, yet some days you’d swear they were all in bands. Really good ones, too.
Insomnium are clearly determined to keep that melodic death metal flag flying as high as they possibly can. Ten albums in, “Netherworlds” gives them every reason to raise it a little higher.
Rating: 8.5/10
