Insicknia hail from Denmark with their second release, 'Ascent to the Sky' promo EP. Their debut was a full length album, titled 'Now Entering... INSICKNIA', from 2006 and it has passed me apart from a few downloadable songs on the band's website. These three songs showed, that the debut must have been a tad calmer than this newbie, though.

'Ascent to the Sky' is pretty multilateral. This brings post-thrashers like Darkane to my mind, thanks to Swedish kind of melody textures. Down-tuned guitars and pounding drumming make me think about the likes of Strapping Young Lad. The production work is very modern, kind of machiney for a big time, interrupted by calmer parts with acoustic guitars brought into the picture. The songs usually have a couple of interesting twists in them. Mainly, the vocals are shouted/bellowed, but there's some clean singing heard, too. Everything is very intense indeed, so those few calmer parts are surely good breathers, let me tell you, even though the melody work offers catchiness. On the other hand, the catchiness can be found in rhythmic work, too. Bass sound is massive!

It's well performed, but still kind of faceless. I get impression of "I've heard that before, but where exactly?" pretty often. Anyways, Insicknia have potential to become recognized, because this sounds way better and sophisticated than the three songs from their debut. Song-wise, very well done, but hopefully the guys can find their own touch, or hone it/them further to really make it/them stick out stronger. But it wouldn't surprise me a bit, if Insicknia was grabbed by some rather big record label sooner than you can say "monosaccharide" (inside joke, this, eh-hehe). A powerful demonstration of modern extreme metal.

Reviewed by Lane
07/15/2008 20:41