Opening an Insomnium album with Henry Purcell’s “The Cold Song” is an interesting decision. The piece’s uneasy, theatrical character provides a strange introduction to Netherworlds, although its mournful atmosphere isn’t far removed from the Finnish band’s usual territory. Insomnium has spent nearly three decades exploring grief, mortality, and everything people struggle to leave behind. The difference here is how the band approaches those familiar subjects once the guitars take over.

Released October 16, 2026, through Century Media Records, Netherworlds follows 2023’s Anno 1696, which built its songs around a larger narrative. Without another concept tying everything together, Insomnium has more freedom to shape each composition individually. Whether that freedom produces something genuinely different is another question.

“Shadowlife” quickly establishes the band’s recognizable sound. Harmonized guitars move over a driving rhythm section, with Niilo Sevänen’s growls cutting through the melodic passages. The guitars do much of the storytelling, alternating between tightly picked riffs and longer, sustained melodies. Insomnium has been using that combination for years, but the careful placement of those parts keeps the song from becoming a collection of familiar gestures.

“Remembrance” slows things down, putting more emphasis on the guitar harmonies and clean vocals. The changes in pace give the melodies room to settle before the heavier sections return. “Gleam in the Black” picks up the speed, bringing sharper guitar work and a stronger rhythmic attack. There’s still plenty of melancholy, naturally. Asking Insomnium to abandon that would be like asking Motörhead to turn down the amplifiers.

The expanded guitar lineup is another consideration. Tomy Laisto joins Markus Vanhala and Ville Friman, giving the band three guitarists to work with. That creates opportunities for overlapping melodies and more involved arrangements, although additional instruments don’t automatically make a song more interesting. Producer Miiro Varjus and mixer Jens Bogren give the guitars, keyboards, and rhythm section enough definition that the individual parts remain distinguishable.

“The Hour Grows Late” makes one of the album’s more ambitious moves. Featuring Amorphis musicians Tomi Joutsen, Tomi Koivusaari, and Santeri Kallio, the eight-minute composition incorporates additional vocals and keyboards into its shifting arrangement. The song moves between heavier passages and more melodic sections, taking its time with changes that might have been compressed elsewhere. There’s a willingness to let an idea develop without immediately pushing toward another chorus.

“Arch of the Sky” also explores a broader structure, drawing on Sámi mythology while moving through progressive passages and the band’s established melodic death metal sound. The guitars and keyboards have more to do than reinforce the same melody, giving the arrangement several directions to explore. These longer compositions are where the album makes its strongest case for stepping outside Insomnium’s usual songwriting habits.

That doesn’t mean every experiment is equally successful. Some of the slower sections revisit melancholy guitar patterns the band has used extensively, while the contrast between growls and clean vocals occasionally becomes predictable. “Ethereal Sleep” explores the gentler side of the arrangements, and “The Banished” supplies a more aggressive counterpoint. The changes in tempo help, even when the underlying ideas aren’t particularly surprising.

“Journey’s End” closes the record with a gradual, atmospheric arrangement that suits the material preceding it. There is no sudden change in direction or attempt to force a dramatic resolution. Insomnium has always been more interested in examining sorrow than offering easy ways out of it, and the ending follows that approach.

Does Netherworlds benefit from leaving the narrative framework of Anno 1696 behind? The answer comes through its arrangements more than any dramatic change in style. The longer compositions, additional guitar possibilities, and contrasting tempos give individual songs room to develop on their own terms. Some familiar habits remain, particularly in the slower melodies and vocal contrasts. But Insomnium doesn’t need to abandon its sound to make worthwhile changes. On Netherworlds, the most interesting developments happen in how the band puts those familiar pieces together.

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Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
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