Originally formed in 1995 under the name of Utopia and weathering numerous lineup changes (and another band name in Torn Apart) before resurfacing as Insicknia for this self-released debut full-length, this Danish outfit exhibits a rather promising blend of modern extreme metal on "Now Entering..."—reminiscent of a more stripped down and rhythmically charged Darkane meets Soilwork, with scattered hints of The Haunted or even Extol for good measure. That is to say that you'll find bits and pieces of midpaced "new school" thrash and plenty of thick, dissonantly melodic riffing that's sort of a Machine Head-esque take on the melodic Swedish style—not to mention loads of chunky power chord grooves and some excellent melodic solos, as well as the obligatory vocal sneers so prevalent within such niches these days. There's room for improvement of course, I mean, for example, I'm not wild on the artwork, and the production suffers (albeit mildly) from some of the standard pitfalls that often come along with the budget constraints of self-released recordings, but overlooking these minimal shortcomings it's quite simple to imagine what this band would be capable of with a little more support from some sort of label or a hint more of a financial boost in the studio somehow. There are any number of loosely comparable bands currently signed to the Nuclear Blasts and Century Medias of the world that possess less potential than Insicknia in terms of quality of riffs and forthright songwriting arrangements alone, so... hey, like I said, there's room for improvement, but there's also some great shit happening here that really does show some real potential. It's not the most original thing in the world, but I'm less and less concerned with that sort of thing at this point in time. As long as there's something at work that hits me on some level, I can appreciate it, and there are some damn solid riffs on this album, so I certainly wish the band all the best in their future endeavors.
Insicknia "Prophets of the Burning Bush"
Insicknia "Lesson One"
Get directly in touch with the band for ordering information if you like what you hear. You can try to contact 'em via MySpace as well. Not bad.
Comments
I had the pleasure of stumbling across these guys at a smalltown Battle-of-the-Bands in Hobro, Denmark. I hate to say they lost, but they were up against hip-hop bands, playin mostly mainstream boy-band crap, in front of a very reserved panel of judges who obviously had no appreciation of metal what-so-ever. That being said, the crowd loved em, and I did too. They were without a doubt the loudest band there, which is something I cant help but respond to. I dont know much about melody, harmony, this one sounds like that one, or the difference between black metal and heavy metal and hardcore, whatever the classes are these days… All I know is what I like, and I like these guys just fine. Im lookin forward to seein another of their shows, but my one complaint is that, so far, they havent played near me!
4.13.2007 | By Madman