Insomnium is back.
It’s been three years since the Finnish band’s last album, but Niilo Sevänen (bass/vocals), Markus Hirvonen (drums), Ville Friman (guitar/vocals), Markus Vanhala (guitar/vocals, I Am the Night, Cemetery Skyline, Omnium Gatherum…), and Tomy Laisto (guitar/vocals, Hateform, Pain Confessor, ex-Mors Principium Est…) are back with the help of Century Media Records for their tenth album, Netherworlds.
Also featured is Aleksi Munter (Empyrean Bane, Funeris Nocturnum, Swallow the Sun) on keyboards.
The Cold Song kicks off the album with rather cold-sounding keyboards that set a melancholic tone, paving the way for Shadowlife, a track that incorporates the band’s haunting, ethereal riffs, as well as a mix of clean and distorted vocals, while the instrumental section features soaring elements. Their Finnish roots are more than evident, and the band leads us into Remembrance, an even heavier track that features energetic yet relatively upbeat power metal elements to contrast with the rhythm section – and it’s impossible not to be swept away by the melodies. The choruses are plentiful, unlike Gleam in the Black, which offers a more Old School and aggressive vibe while remaining jagged and melodic as the vocalist screams over a torrent of double-kick that carries us toward the gentle The Hour Grows Late, where we once again find that quintessentially Finnish touch, alternating between this aggressive softness and distortion as the track unfolds, lasting over eight minutes before welcoming Santeri Kallio, Tomi Joutsen, and Tomi Koivusaari from Amorphis to give the song a unique touch. The track seems to return to the band’s roots, taking advantage of its guests to let the Prog influence linger before Arch of the Sky injects a new, more infectious energy, almost joyful, even, thanks to a rather soft and clear mix, even if the finale is more furious, contrasting with the intro to Pathways of the Night, which unveils softer, almost theatrical sounds to offer an accessible track that ends a bit too quickly for my taste. Ethereal Sleep also begins rather slowly, unleashing muffled, haunting tones, albeit at a slow pace, though there are some more intense passages; however, The Banished offers us a moment of respite with its brief but welcome introduction before the tempo picks up, propelling us into intoxicating riffs. The track is reminiscent of the band’s early days with a fairly aggressive mix. Note the soft, ethereal harmonics that make the track quite accessible, much like Journey’s End, which opens with calm sounds and even a vocal sample before taking a darker turn and delivering Doom/Death tones to bring the album to a fitting close.
Insomnium remains true to itself, exploring haunting, slow-paced tones to cultivate a cold melancholy that we love to hear. Melodies on Netherworlds are ready to captivate us, sometimes offering unexpected elements that nonetheless stay true to the band’s inherent sense of suffering.
90/100
So hello sir, first of all, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me. How do you feel?
Ville Friman (guitar): No problem. I’m good. Already done two interviews, so I am ready for the third one, and then one more to go, so I can then go and lie on my couch and relax.
I know Insomnium for a long time. It’s been since, 2008 or 2009, the real first question is, how could you describe Insomnium without using a metal labels such as Melodic Death Metal or Finish Metal?
Ville Friman (guitar): We’re sort of… maybe the easiest way to describe where we got our influences in a way, we’ve started like we grew up somewhere like in the 90s, and then of course, you know, year 1991, I sound old but I’m remembering these years, that’s the kind of classic year when like Metallica album came, lots of kind of big Metal albums, Grunge, like Nirvana, everything was kind of happening in 90s and then we were of course listening to these bands, Guns N’ Roses and then it kind of got me interested in more extreme Metal, what happened to be and we had some bands like Amorphis, Sentenced in Finland and of course then you had lots of bands in Sweden and Norway, so I kind of like main influences come from that nineties sort of Melodic Death Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal kind of sound and scene, and then we just put everything together and then later got more and more sort of inspired by not so Heavy Metal music necessarily even but more like a softer music and then kind of incorporate those to our sound later, but everything started from this sort of Scandinavian kind of Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Black Metal, whatever was available there during the 90s.
Okay! So the name Insomnium is quite evocative as I can say, but how do you personally link it to the band’s music?
Ville: You know, you could go with this sort of dream worlds, stuff like that, miss nightmare or insomnia and so on, so it kind of has this sort of connotation to this sort of… Something that we cannot necessarily explain, these sort of worlds we’re experiencing, where do the dreams come from, what do they mean, what’s the link there or what happens in the afterlife and so on, so I think it has this sort of mysticism linked to it, something you don’t really know and can’t explain I guess.
That’s very interesting. So it actually took 3 years for Netherworlds to come to life. Are there any changes you noticed in the composition process or in creating music as a 5 piece instead of a 4 piece like you did before?
Ville: I think like with the previous album Anno 1696, Jani (Jani Liimatainen, ed) was still contributing a bit of the music on that album as well, so we’ve kind of like composing that five piece as well and now we were again 5 piece part with new member Tomy (Tomy Laisto, ed) on guitar. I would say maybe the kind of the basic process hasn’t changed too much, maybe we have a bit better recording gear to make a bit better-sounding demos at home. And then the kind of biggest change while working on this album was that the sound engineer was also the producer on this album, so listening, sending demos for him to keep comments on and he was doing quite a lot of like small tweaks with tempo maps, so we’re kind of chasing a few beats per minute, either faster or slower direction in some parts where it’s been more fitting, and then he also like gave us ideas about how to arrange some things and then we listened and then we did changes, some of it we just did it our own way regardless, but he did really challenge us and also gave us lots of good ideas and I would say, you sometimes can be a bit defiant and you don’t want to change your things, in the end of the day we did take a lot of the comments on board and change and tweak little things to make the songs better.
I noticed Insomnium has – as you said – a very cold sound inspired by Melodic Death and Doom too. I asked this question many times, but how do you feel about it and do you feel maybe Finland has a really distinctive sound?
Ville: Yeah, we definitely have a distinct sound in Metal, but maybe to some extent maybe this kind of Metal bands like the styles are maybe more mixed nowadays because you’re experiencing all sort of music more freely through internet, YouTube and whatever, so you’re not so restricted of locally to listen what people are playing, so maybe it has kind of more like globalized the Metal sound, but definitely there’s something unique in Finland, and sort of Finnish style of music, not only Metal music, but sort of traditional songs and then kind of popular music maybe which has made impact as well to Finnish, what kind of melodies are commonly played on radio and so on, so maybe it might have an effect, but if you think about them, the weather is the same in Sweden and in Norway and then in quite a few other countries as well, but they don’t come with similar sounding bands. One of these things is we can build lots of different theories and then think about these things, but I’m not sure you can ever prove where does the melancholic Finnish sound comes from.
That’s really interesting and of course as you say, the internet really helps a lot in terms of music. So maybe you have a personal favorite song on Netherworlds?
Ville: I think as an album, it’s really good. I like a lot of them. Maybe the kind of low slower song, I think like one of my favorite songs is Ethereal Sleep, I think that I was quite happy with that myself. I really liked the Journey’s End, which is the last song made by Markus (Markus Vanhala, ed) as well, I also like quite a lot The Banished, written by Tomy, it has a bit more different vibe to it, and I was kind of helping him a bit like with arranging the songs and then some things to make it sound maybe a bit more Insomnium. But, but like those are kind of few I can kind of come up with, but all the songs have their moments and I’m kind of maybe boring and unpolitical, but I think as a whole it’s quite a nice collection of good songs.
There are a few guests from the band Amorphis on the song The Hour Grows Late. How did you decide on the collaboration with them? How did you make it happen?
Ville: It was our sound and senior producer Miiro (Miiro Varjus, ed) who was suggesting this actually, and got the idea. So he’s been working as a stage tech or tour manager or stage manager for Amorphis as well and also worked with us, so he knows both bands and I think he got the idea to ask uh Amorphe singer Tomi Joutsen to do some clean vocals originally and, and then he got more ideas and maybe we could ask Tomi Koivusaari to do some growling as well, and then the song has this keyboard solo part written by Markus, who wrote the song, but it sounded something where Santeri (Santeri Kallio, ed) could contribute, Amorphis’ keyboard player because he has really nice touch with all the sort of analog sounds Amorphis uses, so he was kind of obvious choice for that as well, but the idea didn’t come from us, it came from the producer who knows both bands, but I think it worked really well. It’s not only so that he could just put a sticker on your album “featuring this and that”, but I think the guest appearances are really complementing the song, and lending themselves to the song, so it’s definitely a much better song when we have Amorphis featuring there, so they’re really bringing some nice input.
I definitely agree with you! Maybe you think you improved yourself as a musician with writing, composing the new album?
Ville: I was working more on the computer and then maybe try to work with a few new plugins and I try to make the demos sound a bit better, like what I would like to kind of try to achieve also sound wise. So I think I spend more time on recording and working on the demos and trying to make the ideas sound more like ready-made already with your home demos, and I think that was a nice process so I was going to a lot of YouTube learning. How should you equalize this sort of thing, how would you make kind of punchy drums from sample drums, and I’m learning a bit of this kind of tricks, of home recording like I’m far away from any pro or any activities but just for my own fun, try to understand how things work and I try to make the demo sound a bit better and that was really sort of nice process because I think it kind of like influences also a bit of the quality of the music and how the ideas are perceived. So I think it was a nice experience to invest a bit of time along with the songwriting to also produce your music a bit more.
Let’s talk about a live show now. How do you live an Insomnium show from your point of view? How do you feel about it? How do you get up on stage?
Ville: You know you rehearse in advance, but then it is sort of a bit of a getting into this sort of flow state, so you know, you don’t have time to really think about what you’re doing when you’re playing, you’re just playing and performing, so you just go with the flow and then you know you kind of try to prepare that, you have the sort of energy and then you’re in a kind of right state of mind, you’re not thinking about anything else, but it’s more like a point blank and I’m just focusing on being present there. So, I think it’s more about just being present in the moment, enjoying what you do, trying to channel your emotions into your playing and also live with the crowd a bit and then, acknowledge that they are there supporting you or having fun and so on. So it’s just being present at the end of the day, I would say, and of course in the ideal case, you’re always up for that, but normally it’s like the crowd will get you going anyway, so you get the feedback from the crowd and then whatever you do will channel that energy to the crowd, so it becomes like two-way street in many of the evenings. And regardless if you’re tired or you haven’t slept a lot or whatever, you might be a bit sick or whatever, you might have fever, but normally you crack open one beer and you go and then it’s fine. Then just rest afterwards if you’re feeling ill, but this often happens, especially if you’re touring like late autumn or early winter when it’s cold and damp everywhere. So we had these tours, everybody’s sick all the time, so that’s not nice, but then you still have to get to the feel and don’t worry about it too much when you’re performing.
Okay! I saw you a few times. As I said, I live close from Paris, so in Paris and at many festivals, of course. How do you feel playing in France? Maybe you enjoy France?
Ville: Yeah, definitely. I would say France has become much better for us, I think we have quite a nice following, Paris is always really good, of course, and that’s true like I would say like most of the countries when you’re playing in the capital, normally there’s more Heavy Metal scene there and more people watching but also a lot of other places like Lyon and lots of these festivals, they’ve been really good. I think we’ve been able to… I would say within the past 10 years, like Germany was a really good country for us from the beginning, but then over the years, I think that France have really increased and we have lots of fans in France as well and we should play more often there, and we like, I like France, the food is great, wine is great, Paris has a great culture, great architecture, so I love playing in France and traveling in France as well! So, I hope we can have more chances to play there in the future as well. Let’s hope for it.
Are there new touring plans for Insomnium after the album release or maybe some just plans?
Ville: Yeah, we’re gonna do two tours with Amorphis. So we are kind of cold touring and first we will go to the US. So there’s gonna be some Finnish shows when the album comes out and after that we’ll have the US tour, US and Canada. That will end somewhere like in mid-December, the 19th of December, so back home for Christmas, and then there’s gonna be a continuing leg with Amorphis again and that’s gonna start in in January and it will go to Germany and Poland and Hungary and I think we have one date in France, in Paris as well. But this is again the first European leg and then we have plans, we would like to go again to do an Asian leg, South America, and then of course to maybe do even both US and Europe again and play play countries we haven’t played so much and then maybe add some extra dates, for example for France and so on, but those are just ideas, we haven’t really planned anything. So now we see two tours, maybe some other, smaller areas and then summer festivals and then what happens then is still to be decided.
OK, that sounds really great and you will be really busy for this!. Did you already begin to work on the setlist for the next shows?
Ville: Yeah, we’ve been putting the setlist together and songs to rehearse. There’s some new songs and I think two of the singles, they’ve been played live already. I think all the sort of 4 singles we released will be played live, but we probably will not play the whole album yet because we’ll start with the Finnish shows and the first Finnish show is when the album is released, so I think we don’t.really… All people will not know the album, so we will not be playing all the songs, but I think the setlist will be evolving as we go, we will be adding some new songs to the set list and I’m chasing that as we go, so maybe updating with some new songs from the album as well.
Let’s begin to have more chill questions now. Maybe you heard about the French Metal scene?
Ville: Yeah, definitely like everybody knows Gojira, but there’s a lot of good French Metal bands, and Osmose Records, and then all these… there’s another one. The kind of record labels that were still there already like in the 90s when we were searching for new bands. For example, Alcest is one of my favorite bands from France and then… what was the one band where the French guy was playing drums… I can’t remember now, I would need to check my CD collection!
No, it’s okay, naming Alcest and Gojira is already fine!
Ville: Yeah, but have lots of other good bands as well!
Maybe there are some bands you would like to play with? Not especially French band, but if you have to create your dream poster with three bands and Insomnium opening?
Ville: Oh yes. So this is of course always difficult, but definitely bands I would like, want to see myself playing as well. I would definitely pick Opeth. That would be really nice. Let’s do something new like Blood Incantation. It would be really cool and they did this sort of long album as well as we did on Winter’s Gate, so I think they would be really nice. A band like musically as well, and I think they’d be playing with Opeth. And then what would be then? One more… But of course, one of the biggest bands you grew up with and then started playing Heavy Metal was Metallica. So if you could call back Metallica, at the olden times, that would be great! If you could choose bands and then the era, that would be great, so it would be a bit older Metallica, that would be quite cool.
That’s very interesting! So here’s the last one, the funniest question now: is there a dish you could compare Insomnium’s music with?
Ville: Maybe something… Definitely not Finnish food because Finnish food is quite boring and plain, so it has to be something where you have different flavors, so it would probably be something like Spanish tapas or the kind of big meal where you have 999 different courses, different things going on and different flavors and then different things to enjoy. So I think that would be a kind of multi-course dinner. And the style could be Spanish, it could be Chinese, it could be French cuisine, but something interesting.
Okay, great! So as I said, that was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time, and the last words are yours!
Ville: Cool! Well, thanks a lot for the interview, the interesting questions, and we have the one show in Paris, but we’ll probably play more festivals and hopefully go to another tour where we’ll be able to play more than one city in in Paris, and other places as well
Thank you very much Ville!