Formed in 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson. Current members include Cato Bekkevold, Ice Dale and Herbrand Larsen.

At its strongest, music is a gateway into another world. The key to a gate nothing else can pry open.Music, essentially, is a weapon to destroy the walls we built around us–and Finnish metalmelancholists Insomniumare amongst its strongest wielders. Their ninth masterpiece, “Anno1696”, leads us deep into a dark and troublesome past in Northern Europe. This is an age of unrest.The age of great famine in the North.The witch hunt is in full swing all across Europeand thegruesome witch trials have even reached the remote and majestic landscapes of Finland andSweden.Set to their latest batch of achingly beautiful, soul-cleansing post-doom dirges and accompanied bya sombre short story written by frontman Niilo Sevänen himself, Insomnium once more summon amanifesto of grief and hope from the ever fertile and melancholic Finnish soil.Founded in 1997 in the Karelian city of Joensuu, Insomnium first gained recognition in 2002 withtheir wintry debut “In the Halls of Awakening”. Quickly building on this with fierce death/doomjuggernaut “Above the Weeping World” (2006) or melancholic masterpiece “One for Sorrow”(2012), the Finns surprised everyone with their sublimely beautiful, achingly forlorn “ArgentMoon” EP in2021, only to shed their skin once more.“We have found our own thing and thattrademark sound, but yet we don’t want to keep repeating ourselves and make the same album overand over again,”Niilo Sevänenunderlines. “With every new member we have evolveda bitsinceall these incredibly talented musicians have brought their own magic along. If someone thought thatwe have grown soft with Argent Moon EP”, he impishly grins, “I think ‘Anno 1696’ shows thatthere is the same old spirit left.”Mixed by JaimeGomez Arellano (Orgone Studios) and mastered by Tony Lindgren (FascinationStreet Studios), “Anno 1696” is by far their most accomplished, emotionally rattling, soaringachievement. Their ninth full-length hasn’t been the easiest genesis, though. “But wemade it, andit’s coming straight from the heart”,MarkusVanhala says. “Making art is always a battle withyourself, is about beating yourself up and bothchannellingand enduring the strong feelings risingwithin you. But when you succeed in getting yourcreative process successfully done, there aren’t alot of things beating this tiny moment of victory. Chasing that brief fleeting moment–that’s whywe’re doing this for 25 years. Brief is the light on our chosen path.”With “Anno 1696”, Insomnium takeus into a world woven of sorrow and last crumbling vestiges ofhope, of wrath and morbid lullabies,an albumrelying on the strengths of their beloved trademarksounds and a new sense of grandiose, melancholicstorytelling.Welcome to 1696. Welcome to hell.