Band:	Insomnium
Album:	In The Halls Of Awaiting
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	2002
Guest review by:	Milena

01. Ill-Starred Son
02. Song Of The Storm
03. Medeia
04. Dying Chant
05. The Elder
06. Black Waters
07. Shades Of Deep Green
08. The Bitter End
09. Journey Unknown
10. In The Halls Of Awaiting

Insomnium fans have it easy. Not only does their band manage to excel with every subsequent release, they also had it all together from the very start. All the brilliance of their later records is not merely hinted in their debut, it is fully carried out.

For starters - have we heard this before? Of course. A majority of the songs on the album have a structure similar to one that made Dark Tranquillity famous back in mid-90s: make the verses brutal, fire a myriad with death metal riffs with a strong emphasis on melody between them and complete it with very technical drumming and nifty acoustic passages. But this formula is like basic cookie dough and a good cook can improve it in various ways to make it spark interest and be different from the starting product. In The Halls Of Awaiting is set apart from similar releases by the mood of the melodies, which are always intense and in the pitch black part of the emotion spectrum. Think somewhere between Sentenced and modern age Amorphis - refined anguish meets experience and playful imagination. Ville Friman surely deserves a ten for his riffing on this effort, and so do Hirvonen and Sevänen for underlining it with awesome rhythm. Niilo Sevänen's also responsible for delivering ferocious growls and haunting whispers.

The lyrics, an Insomnium specialty for sure, are wonderfully neo-romantic and mostly revolve around loss and regret. Of course, there are variations to this theme - hints of folklore at "Song Of The Storm" and "The Elder", space-prog-meets-Stratovarius-kind-of-theme in "Journey Unknown", and, in the title and some of the verses, hints at Tolkien's famous tale of Beren and Lúthien in the epic closer "In The Halls Of Awaiting". They sometimes have such wonderful rhythm when spoken alone, standing well even without the support of music that I couldn't help but wonder whether Niilo (I believe he handles most of them) is a reincarnation of some good 19th century English poet.

The only tangible flaw of this album? The sound is not as good as it should be. Seriously, I'd rate this even closer to a ten if I didn't know the later albums are even better. Insomnium fans, again, know what this praise is all about. And I guess some of you folks aren't familiar with the work of the talented Finnish four, so you'll do a great service to yourself by checking them out, starting with this release.