INSOMNIUM
Insomnium examine the deep, dark roots of fear of female agency
Anno 1696
CENTURY MEDIA
Melodeath veterans revisit the darkest of ages
SWEDEN WAS SEIZED by a paranoia over witchcraft towards the end of the 17th century. At its apex, pastor Laurentius Hornæus was commanded to exterminate black magic in his village. He shoved children into ovens and threatened to burn them alive if they didn’t testify against local women, then oversaw 71 beheadings in a single day. It’s within this butcherous episode that Insomnium have set the narrative of their ninth album and second rock opera after 2016’s Winter’s Gate. The underrated melodeath quintet, in the process, have struck an apex they’ve been levitating towards since Winter’s Gate replaced the goth-flecked gloom of viral hit While We Sleep with prog scope and black metal iciness.