Review by Saxy S for Insomnium - Above the Weeping World (2006)

Insomnium threw me for a wild ride in 2016 with their fantastic single track album, Winter's Gate, one of my favourite albums of the year and dare I say it, among the best metal albums of the entire decade. Needless to say, I have had a lot of time for Insomnium over the last four years.

Which leads us to 2006 and the bands other critically acclaimed record, Above the Weeping World. And I feel like this album should have been so much more than it is. Not to say that this album is bad by any stretch. But I believe that my heightened expectations for this record given the high praise it and Winter's Gate have both received highly tainted my experience. When you break it all down, Above the Weeping World feels like the band in a very comfortable place, towing the line between death metal and progressive metal.

Now when we talk about Progressive Death Metal, a few names come to mind almost instantly. Let's quell that suspicion right away: this is nothing like an Opeth record. They both have their moments, specifically in the expanded songwriting, dynamic flare and great guitar work, but these rhythms are far less expansive than an Opeth record. This album feels colder and more brooding. You could almost say that this album has more in common with Death Doom Metal. Perhaps all of these labels on this record force me into the unfortunate realization that Insomnium were never a really good band at sticking to one location, drilling into it, and acquiring an audience. With this, while the constant changing of death metal styles is truly special, it does not grab me in the same way as other Insomnium records have.

As a result, the compositions can feel all over the place at times. "Mortal Shore" and "Change of Heart" seem the most simplistic of the bunch, and "The Killjoy" is the one most likely to appeal to the true death metal crowd, but "Drawn to Black" and "At the Gates of Sleep" are elongated songs with some interesting ideas, but nothing fully explored. I was hoping for a traditional death metal groove somewhere on this album to connect it all back together: a chugging riff, blast beats, but they never reared their head. Instead, I felt myself really enjoying this album, but feeling like their was a lot more left to be delivered.

As it stands, I still do like this album. The production is quite fine and the instrumentals are very pretty, most notably on the songs "Devoid of Caring" and "The Killjoy". The song compositions are constructed well, including the ten minute closer "In the Groves of Death". But as a fan who came on to this band late, knowing what they were able to do in the following decade leaves this album in an awkward position. Furthermore, having gone back and listened to their previous record Since the Day it All Came Down, it became quite obvious that this band liked their sound during the 2000s and were contempt on progressing forward with it with some stylistic improvements. I don't know, I did not find this album as legendary as so many people have claimed it to be.