Review Summary: My favorite Melodic Death Metal Album and just one of my favorite albums in general.
So as you can see from the summary, this is going to be very subjective.
For this reason let me tell you a quick summary of my story with this record:
I had been going through a rough time in my life and so I turned, as so often to music.
In this case, because I liked the album at the time, and I was just having my first little tastes with Melodic Death Metal I turned to Insomnium‘s Shadows of The Dying Sun. Lyrics befitting my feelings at the time and good, melancholic music. But there was always an itch, that itch stemmed from a YouTuber who recently named One For Sorrow in his Honorable Mentions for albums he considered perfect.
And I always wondered why, I had listened to little bits of it and thought it to be nothing that special, but I was restless, everytime I heard the usual notes of songs like While We Sleep or Black Heart Rebellion (which I still consider as amazing tracks) I wanted to dive deeper and I wanted to find out why that YouTuber seemingly considered One For Sorrow the band‘s Magnum Opus, so I gave in and I leaned back and pressed play and listened to the whole thing front to back.
To tell you I was swept away would be an understatement, I was left speechless, I couldn’t believe that this album went unnoticed by me all this time.
To explain my feelings and give reasons as to why I felt this way would take days, so I will try to keep this contained. Firstly what an Opener, Inertia finds an easy spot among my top 3 album Openers of all time. The delicate and beautifully melancholic guitar melody building into a perfect catharsis left me wondering how the record could even follow this up, but it did, and not too short, Oh No, Inertia transitions seamlessly into the absolute awe-inspiring Opening and main riff of Through The Shadow, backed by impressive performances and fitting production it creates an absolutely beautiful and captivating atmosphere of heartbreak and sadness, but shimmers of hope at the same time. And this sentiment and by extension that song is representative of the whole album throughout.
Beautiful Melodies, an absolutely gripping and gorgeous atmosphere, that just pulls at your heartstrings all the way through. Absolute beasts of performances on all ends, guitars, bass, drums, the perfectly implemented vocals, everything plays off of each other with such elegance, with such passion, with such an understanding of what it was that they tried to achieve. It is honestly unbelievable. I can’t find a single dull moment, not a single thing I would change. This to me is definition of a perfect album. There is enough variety in the songs themselves so it doesn’t sound repetitive, but the spirit is kept alive through everything. Every note is placed where it should be. The quieter parts are never too long nor too short. The heavy parts never become too overbearing. Melodies are held to their perfect length, variety comes in at the exact moments it should. The end result is just a behemoth of an album, an artistic achievement. It is as emotionally gripping as it is excellently played out.
So to come to a conclusion, I adore this album it quickly became my favorite record within the realm of Melodic Death Metal and one of my all time favorite albums in music in general. I began searching frantically for a record that could capture the same spirit, the same passion and skill, just the same feel, but I quickly came to realize that there wasn’t such a thing, at least not to me, and maybe that is the whole point. Some records are just meant to be like this, for everyone it’s gonna be a different one, and for me it’s this one. This is obviously my completely subjective opinion, people can say, but it’s not even that good, there’s way better out there, you just haven’t found it yet. And that’s okay, this may just be my favorite and for you it’s going to be a different one, but at the end of the day, it’s all just subjective, we all have different experiences, and this album became a representation of that sentiment in my mind. It forever occupies a special place in my heart.
Recommended songs: Everything, but good places to start:
Inertia
Through The Shadow
Song Of The Blackest Bird
Lay The Ghost to rest
Regain The Fire
