Insomnium – Across the Dark

I looked at that picture. I looked at the title. I said, “I must have.” The album artwork for Insomnium’s Across the Dark probably corresponds with the music that goes with it better than any other album this year. The picture says bleak, gloomy, despair, and lost. While at the same time saying perseverance, hope, and defiance. Those are all the feelings I felt while spinning this disc.

It is one of my favorite releases of the year. The atmosphere this disc creates while spinning is so thick and tangible you can cut it with a knife. Their guitar work isn’t anything fancy or complicated, quite the opposite actually. Their ideas aren’t terribly original. Some of the songs are on the verge of becoming metalcore (not that I don’t like that genre or anything), which is heavily influenced by melodeath anyways. But I think Insomnium is one of the best bands in terms of creating atmospheric, melancholic, and melodic albums. Their vocalist is awesome, and their lyrics are great. They are one of the last shining stars in the sky of melodic death metal. A genre that is sadly dying, if not already dead.

The album, while awesome, is very inconsistent. Most of the tracks blew me away, but there were a couple that were only awesome. In true Insomnium style, the album starts out with a mystic and gloomy soft intro, which sets the mood (not the pace) for the rest of the album. One thing about Across the Dark that will keep your attention is that some tracks are very rhythmic, like “Against the Stream”, while others are slow and gloomy, like “Weighed Down with Sorrow.” This is the first Insomnium album to feature clean vocals on some of  the tracks, “Where the Last Wave Broke” being the most heavy-laden with such.

* * * *  1/2 out of  five stars.

Check out the video for the single “Down with the Sun.” It is probably the strongest track on the disc. I could listen to it over and over again.

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