Band:	Insomnium
Album:	Anno 1696
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	February 24, 2023
A review by:	musclassia

Disc I
01. 1696
02. White Christ [feat. Sakis Tolis]
03. Godforsaken [feat. Johanna Kurkela]
04. Lilian
05. Starless Paths
06. The Witch Hunter
07. The Unrest
08. The Rapids

Disc II [Songs Of The Dusk] [Deluxe Edition bonus]
01. Flowers Of The Night
02. Stained In Red
03. Song Of The Dusk

The last two Insomnium releases received adulatory reviews from self-proclaimed fanboys. I am not an Insomnium fanboy, but there is a longstanding tradition of Metal Storm reviewers enthusiastically waxing lyrical about their albums, and in this instance, I am happy to follow the example set by others.

I will qualify my ‘not a fanboy’ statement by saying that I do like the band a fair amount; most of their records have found a place in my digital collection, and I’ve bestowed generous ratings on each of them on the site. At the same time, I’ve never had an infatuation with any of their records in the way I’ve had with albums from similar acts such as Be'lakor or their friends in Omnium Gatherum, and the one time I went to see them live, I mainly went for the purposes of seeing Conjurer’s support set. Still, as I revisited their recent discography from One For Sorrow onwards on a marathon listening binge recently, I was pleasantly reminded of just how consistently solid their material is, even the newer records that I’ve mentally catalogued as a step below the likes of Above The Weeping World and Across The Dark. Nevertheless, as much of a newfound appreciation as I’ve gained for their 2010s records, after several replays, I’m inclined to say that Anno 1696 outshines each of them.

In that statement, I will say that I’m discounting Winter’s Gate; I feel like that album is so different to their other albums that it’s hard to make easy comparisons to it. There is every scope to compare it with Heart Like A Grave, though, and while it’s by no means a reinvention of their sound, there are shifts in focus that I feel work to Anno 1696’s benefit. For starters, there’s less of an emphasis on chorus-focused tracks for the most part; while songs such as “Lilian” do have choruses, they aren’t centrepieces in the way they were on the likes of “Valediction” and “Neverlast”. This is also arguably a more energetic and aggressive record than Heart Like A Grave; that album finished with a double-header of long, softer tracks, while Anno 1696 has a more intense, lively ending with “The Rapids”.

Now, to move away from how the album stacks up to its predecessor, what is it about this album that makes me consider it to be so strong in relation to other recent efforts by the group? Simply put, it’s got a lot of great songs with great moments; it’s a basic explanation, but also it’s kinda the truth. Offering a bit more insight, something that really impresses is how the best songs here stand out for different reasons. “1696” is the tone-setter of the album, a long acoustic guitar prelude eventually building into a high-octane ‘main’ track that is as frenetic as the introduction was tranquil. “Starless Paths” starts off strongly with some emphatic tremolo riffing, but peaks in a particularly relentless passage midway through that is elevated by emphatic use of choirs, a relative rarity for Insomnium, but a well-utilized one. “The Witch Hunter” immediately follows it with a lighter touch; this is one of only a couple of songs on Anno 1696 in which clean vocals appear, but on this album they’re delivered with a different tone, the melancholic choral tone on this song more in line with something you’d perhaps expect from Omnium Gatherum than from the band that released “Through The Shadows” and “Valediction”.

Anno 1696 is something of a novelty for Insomnium in that it features two guest vocalists, whose songs arguably encompass the best and worst that the album has to offer. Rotting Christ’s Sakis Tolis feels slightly wasted on the uncharacteristically insipid trudge that is “White Christ”, which threatens to derail the momentum of the record before it’s been built. However, it’s immediately followed by “Godforsaken”, which features Johanna Kurkela (Auri, Tuomas Holopainen), and all that momentum is firmly reinstated. My favourite track by far on Heart Like A Grave was “Pale Morning Star”, and “Godforsaken” replicates some of the emotional intensity of that song, but from the sugar-sweet layering of Kurkela’s vocals early on, through a barrage of memorable riffs and guitar melodies and onto a stirring melancholic clean vocal climax, this song stands out entirely on its own. I genuinely feel “Godforsaken” is right up with the best songs Insomnium have ever produced.

This isn’t a sonic revolution for Insomnium necessarily, but I do feel that they have grown or explored some relatively new ideas for them that elevate the final result of Anno 1696. This is a record that should delight long-term fans, and potentially rejuvenate anyone whose interest may have been declining in recent years; Insomnium always offered reliable quality, but I feel like there’s an extra something to this record that elevates it above the already high standard of their recent output.