PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
@Planetmosh @AnybodyBC reviews ‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’ by @insomniumband released via @centurymedia on 28th April
Alive and kicking since 1997, Finnish melodic death metallers from Joensuu are releasing their new studio album, called ‘Shadows of the Dying Sun‘. It is the 6th Insomnium album, which is the actual ‘Ephemeral’ EP (2013) follow up. Although the EP consisted of three more acoustic songs, ‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’ is definitely a solid melodic death metal album with the Insomnium trademark sound.
The artist responsible for the black and white album cover is Wille Naukkarinen, who depicts the actual shadows of the dying sun with lots of birds flying around it. Although the cover consists a lot of dark grey colour tones, the album inside is quite colourful, yet in the shadows of the music there are dark tones. ‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’ is a a set of ten songs and one hour spent listening to this album wasn’t a waste of time.
The very first track of the album ‘The Primeval Dark’ has a 2 minute instrumental intro and is the shortest song in the whole album. It is great quite slow and melancholic introduction in to the rest of the ‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’. The usual Insomnium tempo and more melodies come in with the second song ‘While We Sleep’. Beautiful guitar riffs leads and melodies lead the listener through the all the songs of the album. This set of songs is a winding road through the dark and melancholic dreams of the heart and soul.
If I would have to pick my favorite track, my vote would go to ‘Lose to Night’ – the fifth song of the album, which you might call the melodic death metal ballad. Symbolic but this is the very middle of the set and to my ears sounds like a ‘golden middle’ of this album. Memorable melody, beautiful chorus and these five minutes of drowning deep in to the night makes me imagine the shadows of the sun at its dying moment. Well done!
After the slower, ‘Lose to Night’, the band speeds up again and introduce listener to the rest of the songs as well as ‘Ephemeral’, which is familiar to Insomnium fans from last year’s EP.
‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’ by Insomnium as a solid and high quality death metal set of ten different yet dark shadows, which you might recognize from your haunted dreams. It is the finest Finnish melodic death metal album of the year 2014 so far.
‘Shadows of the Dying Sun’ is going to be released on 28th of April, 2014 via Century Media.
Track Listing:
1. The Primeval Dark
2. While We Sleep
3. Revelation
4. Black Heart Rebellion
5. Lose To Night
6. Collapsing Words
7. The River
8. Ephemeral (album version)
9. The Promethean Song
10. Shadows Of The Dying Sun
Insomnium are:
Markus Hirvonen – Drums
Ville Friman – Guitars, vocals (clean)
Niilo Sevänen – Vocals, bass
Markus Vanhala – Guitars
Links:
http://www.insomnium.net
http://www.facebook.com/insomniumofficial
http://twitter.com/insomniumband
http://www.myspace.com/insomniumband
http://vf-insomnium.blogspot.com
