FEATURING MEMBERS OF KYLESA, INSOMNIUM, ABORTED, MNEMIC, MARUTA, EAST OF THE WALL, BLOODIEST, BROKEN HOPE, AND IN DE GOOT ENTERTAINMENT

Every year year, MetalSucks asks musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year have been. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike have graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of nine to ten musicians at a time two to three times a day for the whole week.

After the jump, check out the next group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

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No surprise, but Evanescence and Five Finger Death Punch nabbed the #1 and #2 spots on the Current Hard Music charts for the third week in a row. The rest of of the Top 10 isn’t much better; aside from Foo Fighters (#4) and Mastodon (#8), the lot is pretty disappointing. BUT, there were solid debuts from Carnifex, Russian Circles (!), Structures, Black Tusk, Junius and more. Those numbers after the jump.

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Why, it was just last week that Insomnium bassist/vocalist Niilo Sevänen told our own Leyla Ford that all the members of the band have other careers, including guitarist Ville Vänni, who — watch out, single Jewish ladies!!! — is a doctor.  The advantage of having a second, better-paying source of income, Sevänen pointed out, is that Insomnium “don’t need to make music as our living… We can do exactly the kind of music we want, because there’s not so much commercial pressure that we need to sell thousands and thousands of copies to pay our mortgages or rent.” Which makes perfect sense! Plenty of bands employ a similar strategy.

But the disadvantage, it seems, is that having two careers means there won’t be much time for anything but those careers, and that’s bound to take a toll, too. And so now Vänni, apparently exhausted from years of double-duty, has decided to exit the band. He explains on Insomnium’s official website:

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When I was fifteen years old, I had to sneak out of my parents’ house on a Friday night to go see GWAR and the Misfits play a Halloween show. Then I had to conceal my clothing from my parents, seeing as it was, y’know, soaked in blood, urine, and semen.

Here we are all these years later, pretty much right at the anniversary of that show, and GWAR are on a popular, mainstream late-night talk show. And yet, somehow, they seem no less rebellious than they ever were.

Which is all my way of saying, “GWAR rules.” And they do. They rule. Hard.

ANYWAY, here are some things we did this week:

• Speaking of GWAR, Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie himself provided us with more insights into the NFL. Meanwhile, several members of the Relapse Records family gave us the skinny on the new NHL season, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley pondered the pros and cons of new technology in music.
• We debuted Jucifer’s new video, for the song “Hiroshima.”
• We got exclusive specs on Contain Us, the new box set from The Devin Townsend Project.
• We spoke to Steel Panther and Niilo Sevänen from Insomnium.
• We checked out the latest release from Carnifex.
• We continued the Countdown to the Metal Suckfest and defended Danzig.
• We counted down the eleven cardinal rules of attending a concert.
• We wondered if nu-dethcore is the next big thing.
• We cried because even ex-members of Metallica make bad music now.
• We argued about the best debut albums of the past twenty-five years.

And that’s it! Have a delightful weekend, gang. We’ll see ya Monday.

-AR

I don’t think I’ll ever be upset if a band I love starts getting more popular. Finally, they’re getting some recognition, and all the people I usually bug about the music I like can get some peace from me. Of course, there is a certain amount of smugness to “being there first,”  but what can you do? I try not to be too smarmy about it.

Insomnium is one such band. It’s no secret I enjoy my melodeath, but it seems so dismissive to label this band as such and leave it at that. I hesitate to describe their sound as anything but “haunting”  – the word could not be more apt. Seamlessly combining melancholic harmonies with harder solos, their music is just dark enough to offset the bittersweet lightness that pops up at unexpected intervals. Their newest album, One For Sorrow, marks their fifth release, and vocalist, bassist, and co-founder Niilo Sevänen was happy to talk about why they sound so sad.

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Last week was a slow one for new releases, but don’t worry, this week’s slate is a bit more impressive so next week’s Soundscam column should be a bit more exciting. This week Suckanescence and Five Finger Death Suck grabbed the respective #1 and #2 spots on the Current Hard Music charts once again by a long shot, even with 69% and 68% Week 2 declines; it’s gonna be a while before those go anywhere, and this week’s #3 isn’t exactly going to please headbangers either. But Iced Earth’s first album with new vocalist Stu Block grabbed the #4 spot, while Cradle of Filth, Insomnium and Evile all made it into the top 100.

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New releases from Iced Earth, Insomnium, Electro Quarterstaff, Evile and Puscifer top this week’s list of new face-melters, while a b-sides / re-imaginings compilation from Cradle of Filth might actually be the week’s biggest new record. As usual, all of these are available at Amazon for less than you’ll find them at most other places. We take a look at the above releases and more after the jump:

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I was listening to Insomnium’s new album, One for Sorrow, last night when I realized that it would be very easy for the metal community to take this band for granted. I mean, for nearly a decade now, they have released a new album every two, three years tops, like clockwork, and, let’s be real, all of those albums follow the same basic formula. That formula is the formula for EPIC AWESOME EPICNESS, which kinda makes Insomnium like the anti-Linkin Park, but, still, I can see how someone might go, “Oh, another terrific new Insomnium album? Well, terrific, terrific,” and move on.

Do not make that mistake. DO NOT TAKE INSOMNIUM FOR GRANTED.  The world does not have enough fantastic bands making consistently fantastic albums right now for you to do so. Life is short and Insomnium could easily go away tomorrow — we see it happen all the time. And then where will you be? Who will supply the soundtrack for your fantasies of marching off to save the world from a killer asteroid while jousting atop a giant black steed (all in slow motion, if possible)? Seriously: WHERE WILL YOUR LIFE BE WITHOUT INSOMNIUM?!?

So. One for Sorrow comes out on October 18 — that’s one week from today, dummies — on Century, but is now streaming in full right here. You have two choices: listen to it loud or listen to it really, really loud. As I have said before, the only people who don’t love Insomnium are people who have never heard Insomnium. So go listen to Insomnium. Your life will be much better for it.

-AR

I don’t know who directed Insomnium’s new video, “Through the Shadows,” which debuted yesterday afternoon on Metal Injection; but whomever it was, he or she deserves a big pat on the back. This could have been as boring and clichéd as metal performance videos get these days, but the way its shot and edited, it always feels appropriately GODDAMN EPIC for this band… even though huge chunks of it are tight close-ups and shots of spiders doing really not very much in particular. This is the video Insomnium, Knights of Awesome Awesomeness, totally deserve.

Insomnium’s new album, One for the Sorrow, comes out October 18 on Century. A plague on your house if you don’t get it.

-AR

Insomnium are special, ’cause they’re not a “love ‘em or hate ‘em” type thing — they’re a “love ‘em or never heard ‘em” type thing. No joke: You either already know that Insomnium are FUCKING AWESOME, or you’ve never heard Insomnium before. No one hates this band. I mean, maybe SOMEone SOMEwhere probably hates this band, but that person is probably a Nazi who has no friends and also hates babies, puppies, and sex.

So whether you love Insomnium or you’ve never heard them before, you’re gonna wanna go here and download their new song, “Unsung.” It’s 100% free and 100% killer, so do it do it do it.

Insomnium’s new album, One for Sorrow, comes out October 18 on Century Media. We’ve already heard it, and, yes, it adheres to the Insomnium formula, and yes, that is still the best formula ever written in the history of music, science, or pretty much anything.

-AR

Of all the great injustices in the world (oppressive leaders in the Middle East, the war in Darfur, Eastern European sex slave trafficking, the Yankees, etc), one stands gravely ignored: that Agalloch are more popular than Insomnium. To be clear I love Agalloch, but the deafening stranglehold of hype surrounding their really good but not OH MY GOD 2010 album Marrow of the Spirit was just too much to stand given it seemed to be based on more than just the music itself. Why don’t Insomnium inspire such fervor in metal fans? They’ve been a band for just about as long, traffic in essentially the same brand of melancholy doom-death and are, uh, better. Are they too awesome for their own good, soaring above the minds of whimsical hype-susceptible metalheads? Too slickly produced? Should they issue more limited edition vinyls that go for $300 on eBay? Are they too European???

No matter: as all Insomnium fans like reader Geoff Hansen know, Insomnium are “champions of excellence.” Axl told you on Tuesday about the new video and digital single for the song “Weather the Storm” featuring Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne on vocals; turns out that digital single has a B-side called “Beyond the Horizon.” It’s creepy and dark, and it’s entirely instrumental. Very Agalloch-y, I must say. Thanks to Mr. Hansen for sending it in.

-VN

Hey, remember “Weather the Storm,” that awesome new single Insomnium recorded with Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne last year to promote the bands’ European tour? Well, it has a video now! And that video is… well, honestly, it’s not all that great. It’s just a live video, and not a very dynamic one at that.

But guess what? Insomnium get a free pass. In fact, Insomnium get a million free passes. As Vince put it, “Insomnium is never a bad idea.” They are always at the awesome top of the awesome awesomeness heap. I think I could learn that they’ve been going around Dutch ovening adorable kittens to death and I’d probably forgive them. They just make life so much better, I’d be like, “Whatever, did you see the way that pussy was looking at them? Fucker had it coming.”

(Side note: there’s apparently a digital single of the song available, too, but I’m not seeing it on iTunes or Amazon, so… maybe it’s just available to Europeans?)

So that was just the best part of your day.

-AR

While Anso was running the site last Thursday and Friday and Axl and I were away coordinating our next shipment of Maldovan prostitues on a business trip, we somehow had the good fortune of ending up on a limousine-style party bus with a bunch of metal industry cohorts. Some whiskey, beer, and a [new, fake] can of Four Loko later, DJ duties on the bus’s decked-out but impossible-to-operate sound system fell into my clearly incapable hands. Black leather seats, champagne glasses, black lights, big screen TV… what better party music that I happened to have on my iPhone than the almighty CHROMEO???

Picture the scene! I had some booze in me and was GROOVIN’, maybe even dancing, and shit was BANGIN’!. Party time! Pass the joint! Rob from Metal Injection was all over that shit and backed my DJ pick. A couple of other folks nervously nodded along, putting their very metal cred on the line in favor of some fuckin’ disco JAMZ, son! Bold!

“What is this crap? Fuck this bullshit! Don’t we have some band’s demo CD or something we can put on?” These words rang through the air from the mouth of a high-up metal industry dude and cut through my heart like that time I found out the super-hot girl in my 9th grade gym class was only into other girls.

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Before Mar De Grises were the new Insomnium, Omnium Gatherium were the new Insomnium. “The new Insomnium,” of course, being short-hand for “new band that plays monolithically epic, eternally sad, woefully aching, Scandinavian melodic death metal.” Not that anything’s happened to Insomnium that would necessitate a replacement, but, ya know, it never hurts to have more than one and Insomnium (along with America’s Daylight Dies) are pretty much the masters of this genre.

Needless to say, “Soul Journeys” — the new song and videio by Omnium Gatherum — is great in exactly all the ways you’d want it to be. It uses the standard VI –> I chord progression in the chorus (pretty much one of the most epicly sad chord combos there is) that marks so many songs by these types of bands, but fuck it, who cares… if it ain’t broke don’t fix it! The excellent metal blog No Clean Singing was the first to pick this song up. Says NCS scribe Islander: “This is melodic death metal done right. It hits hard, it makes you wanna headbang, but it’s catchy, and it has a surprising — and surprisingly dreamy — interlude in the middle with clean singing, of all things.”

The track comes from the new Dan Swanö-produced album New World Shadow, out February 9th on Lifeforce and available for pre-order now.

-VN

There’s this amazing falafel joint in NYC called Mamoun‘s (“mah-MOONS”) that Axl and I have been frequenting since we were kids. It’s open all night, the service is snappy, the price of a falafel sandwich is still a whoppingly cheap $2.50 ($5 for a shawarma cut fresh off the spit) and most importantly of all, it’s fucking delicious. There is no better falafel in all of Manhattan. After years of debating late-night drunken journeys to Mamoun’s and always being happy I decided in favor of them, I coined the phrase “Mamoun’s: never a bad idea,” because really, if I make the decision to go to Mamoun’s I will never be let down.

Insomnium are like the Mamoun’s of metal; there is no situation I can possibly imagine in which someone could put on an Insomnium track and I’d go “Nah, I’m just not feeling that right now.” Insomnium hit the spot — every fucking time! Without fail.

The writers of No Clean Singing know this all too well, so naturally they’ve included a post about Insomnium as part of their Finland Tribute Week feature. And who knew — there’s a brand new Insomnium track called “Weather the Storm” that features Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne on a guest vocal spot. Apparently Century Media released it earlier this fall to promote an Insomnium / Dark Tranquillity European tour in September and October. It sounds purely Insomnium and it sounds purely great; I love Stanne’s added vocal snarl too. Stream it above, because…. Insomnium, never a bad idea.

-VN

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week, inspired by Axl’s current ailment, we asked our writers:

WHAT IS THE BEST METAL TO LISTEN TO WHEN YOU’RE SICK?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Back in July, my main man Vince told you about Chile’s Mar de Grises, and compared them to Insomnium and Swallow the Sun; I’ve been listening to their latest album, Streams Inwards, a fair amount recently, and I’m basically just here to tell you that he’s right. (And I’d probably add Daylight Dies to that list, too.) If you dig the aforementioned bands and you aren’t listening to Mar de Grises, you are depriving yourself of some music that I can pretty much guarantee you’ll flip for.

Because like the music made by those other bands, Stream Inwards is epic, cinematic, melodic, and haunting. I don’t know that if it brings anything new to the melodoom table, but I also kinda think this is an instance of lack-of-innovation not really mattering; it feels good to listen to Stream Inwards, and sometimes, feeling good is good enough. Don’t forget that Insomnium have basically been making the same album over and over and over again, and at the end of the day, their fans (including me) don’t really seem to care because it’s all so capital-”A” Awesome. Ditto Streams Inwards.

Streams Inwards is out now on Season of Mist. You can check out the track “Shining Human Skin” here.

-AR

A reader calling himself “Ross UK” tipped us off that Insomnium have released “Weather the Storm,” a new song featuring guest vocals by Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne, apparently in anticipation of DT’s upcoming European “Where Death is Most Alive” tour. And that’s really all the info I have. But it’s an awesome new Insomnium song, so, really, what else do you need to know? Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I’ve considered suicide, or, worse, taking a job at a hip-hop magazine, and it’s only the thought of all the new Insomnium music I’d miss that keeps me off the ledge.

Somebody e-mail me an mp3 of this please.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

There weren’t any real hot button topics this week, so we decided to just play a fun game that used to keep Vince and Axl occupied for many a lunch period when they were kids:

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Last year I wrote about Finnish melo-doomsters Black Sun Aeon, and just a couple weeks ago Axl wrote about ‘em too. Call it a unanimous Suckitude, but both Axl and I are really digging these guys. Must mean something. But really, if you enjoy dark, doomy, melodic metal bands (and in particular the Finnish ones) like Swallow the Sun and Insomnium there’s no reason you won’t like these guys.

Black Sun Aeon have a new video for “A Song For My Funeral” from their recently released album Routa. It’s just a bunch of stitched-together live clips, but as with most videos these days it’s a perfectly fine excuse to listen to an awesome song and talk about it. Check it below, then listen to some more (sans video) Black Sun Aeon on their MySpace page.

-VN