One For Sorrow

Brilliant album.

Love this. Meoldic, heartfelt fanstasy metal feel with everything you want to here from a band like this. A Must!

I kid you not when I say that this is without doubt the best album that I have ever heard.

Great album feels like its up there with the early stuff.

I've been into metal for a loooong time (doom, death, black, you name it). As I result, I felt I'd heard it all. But this album really rekindled the flame for me. Last time it happened was when I bought my first Opeth album, and maybe Wolves in the Throne Room. But back to Insomnium. How I could've ignored this band until today is beyond me. I guess I was getting too much of a feeling of déjà-vu with most bands to look hard enough.Even though there's nothing new sound or even style-wise with Insomnium (after all, it sounds kind of Dark Tranquillity-esque), what gets me really excited is the blend of power and musicality. No pretentious over-developped concepts, no boring breaks just for the sake of sounding "mature" (look, we can do quiet too), no ridiculous keyboard or ethereal female vocals ("look, we can appeal to people who hate metal"). But no mindless brutality, crap recording, amateur musicianship either. This band strikes a balance like no other. It can be brutal and fast but the drive is insane, it makes you want to headbang like when you first decided to grow your hair long. The melodies are fantastic. I've also bought Above the Weeping World which I'm now waiting with impatience.Pure metal as it should be, melodic and bursting with power. Air guitar and foot-tapping guaranteed. I want more!UPDATE: having received Above the Weeping World, I would say it's a little bit above (no pun intended) One for Sorrow. The sound is less polished (I mean texture-wise, not recording-wise) which gives it a tad more orginality. And it's as musically competent. In a nutshell, two fantastic offerings.

Well insomnium is my favourite band, but still there new album, one for sorrow is really great. i regret so much not going to see them live in london after this release..probaly my biggest regret in life. This album is just everything you want in Melodic death metal..A mixture of vocals (which i love in any kind of music), great guitars, great atmosphere and emotion and among other things that you will feel and love if you purchase this album. Out of any albums, i would reccomend this one the most. If you're a fan of Insomnium..please don't download this for free, Buy this, because it is what they deserve. From the day i first listened to insomnium, they have been my favourite band ever since, Just everything blows me away..To be apart of this sound i can honestly say i am not ashamed at all. The songs - well there all soo good but yeah..When i first listened well i suppose now aswell..my personal favourites were regain the fire, one for sorrow. Great songs. But i have come to love all of them much more. Yeah when i had first heard the album..Starting with inertia..it blew me away completely from listening to that song..i knew this was to be a great album ;)

2011 has been quite a beastly year for metal. Great bands like Moonsorrow, Nightrage, Suidakra, Symphony X, Rhapsody, Septicflesh, Primordial, Absu, Vintersorg, Protest the Hero... the list just keeps on going... have released quality offerings. Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, Finland's finest Insomnium are back for another round of melancholic melodic death metal to tug your heart strings till tender once again.Insomnium have been one of my favourite bands for a while, with In the Halls of Awaiting and Above the Weeping World being two of my most beloved albums of all time. However, while Across the Dark was by no means a bad album, it felt, to me anyway, like a slightly average offering from an otherwise spectacular band. Perhaps they played it a little too safe, as I feel like that album was in need of some new ideas to spice things up a little. Thankfully, One for Sorrow certainly sees the band playing their A game once more.The first thing that really hit me about One for Sorrow is the different style of production. The band has gone for a much more rock/prog rock sort of production, with a warmer, dare I say stonier guitar tone that reminds me of bands like Mastodon or Ghost Brigade. It brings out a new depth to their sound by almost giving it a very prog/post-metal vibe. But it's not just a fancy new production that make One for Sorrow so great. The band seems to have found their creative thinking caps again and brought a whole host of new yet subtle influences to their usual sorrowful and folk-tinted mix of melodic death metal. Overall, I would say the new album has much more of a rock/prog-rock feel - not really reinventing the wheel in any terms as the album is still ripe with their signature sound, but it sounds to me like things have been mixed up a little. The guitar work in general is a bit simpler, and there's more use of chord strumming than riffs than ever before. The quite sections are also a bit more shoe-gazy then folky this time round - again not a huge difference but still note-worthy. There are also lots of little touches, such as forays into quasi-black metal segments and sub-cookie monster growls in Song of the Blackest Bird, stop/start riffing on Inertia and Regain the Fire, or the brilliant decent into full on prog rock in Lay the Ghost to Rest . However, what really wins the day over for me are the two riff monster tracks, Only One Who Waits and Every Hour Wounds, which almost sound as if they could have been lifted from In the Halls of Awaiting. Fast, melodic and complex, yet still with that little bit of a rockier feel that defines One for Sorrow in my eyes. Actually, the more I think about it Only One who Waits might be my favourite Insomnium track ever (close competition with Black Waters and Ill-Starred Son). My edition also features a bonus track with Mikael Stanne on guest vocals, which is pretty far out as well.Now, a lot of people make a big fuss about the inclusion of clean vocals on Across the Dark, and they're back on One for Sorrow. However, the clean singing is so seamlessly integrated that it barely needs to be mentioned. It's infrequent and subtle... nuff said. Haters will hate, but personally I didn't think it was that big a deal.Insomnium are band who, over the course of successive albums, have forged their own unique sound, and One for Sorrow is not a huge departure from that on any account. It's still the enchanting, visceral combination of sombre melodies, harmonic riffing, bison growling and meanders into beautiful acoustic soundscapes that earned the band their top spot in the world of melodic death. But by broadening their horizons a little and adopting more of a prog-rock sound,the band has added that subtle but essential dash of variety that Across the Dark was, in my view, missing. Again, the newer and more organic production style really brings all these elements to life in a way that, for me at least, re-energizes Insomnium's sound and has revived my interest in them again.Ripe with melancholy and a yearning for times gone by, One for Sorrow is the perfect album for walking through dark autumn forests or cold snowy mornings, and as the majestic tones of epic title track fade out, the only thing I want to do is play the damn thing all over again. A fine album from a great band and certainly a top 10 album for the year; don't hold back. One for Sorrow is a great album for fans of the band or those checking out Insomnium for the first time