The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #2

Crawling bloodied and broken from the Inside Room, we crumple our indivisible selves on the floor of a frost-scented forest, marking time, waiting for death...

 #2
Insomnium - One For Sorrow

When Insomnium release a record, there’s a sudden rush of anticipation to get it in the mail (Yes, friends, I buy music.) the days pass achingly until you’re able to slip it into the CD tray (or vinyl platter, as I prefer.) One For Sorrow is like taking a hard look at yourself in the mirror as thunder crackles in your mind while watching your tears falling like rain. It’s like pent up rage tearing apart its fetters and bounding through your heart. With each urgent minute, there's a momentary release into freedom to remind yourself you’re trapped. Gloomy, despondent, heavy stuff from these criminally underrated Finns, outpacing and outplaying their seemingly dozing Swedish progenitors.

Though post-rock and shoegaze are the de rigeur styles of late, they lovingly furnish their palatial tracks with gilded slivers of grandeur, unwilling to sacrifice their wild streaks of old, a fierce exemplar in Every Hour Wounds. Harrowing gangs of mourners howl on Through the Shadows and the Song of the Blackbird lacerate like searing blades running thick with blood in an effort to revive a moribund elan vivre – this album has nary a skerrick of hope folded into its miasma of grey but their melodies sound defiant, graceful, and beautiful, save to mention their dark Romantic lyricism vaulting the record's raw, sorrowful element to a natural perigee on the string-filled self-titled closer. 

Workmanlike production lends tracks like Only One Who Waits imparts a calloused, bruising character, pleasing to hear amid the din of a thousand producers hollowing out the souls of their records to sound “more digital than anything else.” Though their last three albums were exquisite in their own right, the simplistic tag of “In Flames meets Children of Bodom on Opeth pills” ought to be consigned to metal history. A mature effort, it’s unashamedly and unforgettably a work of Insomnium’s stellar brand; an opus of elegant desperation.

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The Top 10 of 2011