Insense – Soothing Torture
Candlelight Records – CDL253 – February 7th, 2006
By Jason Jordan
These guys are from the wrong country. Norway is supposed to be the home of black metal, and nothing else. Despite signs littering the country’s borders (“Black Metallers Only,” “Trespassers Will Be Sneered At Mercilessly,” and “The Children Thank You For Obeying The Speed Limit”),
Insense manage to thrive in such a state.
Soothing Torture – the second output from this quartet – is a 37 minute hodgepodge, relaying an interesting mishmash of styles. In the end, however, I couldn’t find a reason to revisit the disc once it concluded.
I’ll start with the most favorable comparison, and move down the line from there. There is a small amount of
Meshuggah/
Gojira influence to be found, as some of the riffs draw from said Swedes and French, while an occasional snippet of
Soothing Torture is flavored with the grooves of the South – especially Texas and Louisiana. As they say, things come in threes, so with that being said we move on to the final likening. Perhaps you’ll be chagrined upon digesting the news, but
Insense have liberally powdered their sophomore full-length with shavings of metalcore and
Killswitch Engage leanings. What’s that? You want examples of this stuff? Don’t I do enough around here?! All right then, I’ll try my best. “Helplessness” is almost a misleading first impression since it gives no indication as to what the remainder of the album will sound like. A thrashy “Making up for Lost Time” struts across the runway next, and after about a minute and half, glints of Southern U.S. influence start to file in, along with lofty riffs typical of
Meshuggah. The commencement of “I, Deviant” lends credence to the prior statements. There’s evidence in “Constriction,” too. Whenever Hjelm sprinkles his clean vocals about – and when all instruments combine for a breakdown, or whatever – the metalcore vibes just ooze out.
Therefore, even though
Soothing Torture waves the good-production-coupled-with-well-played-music flag,
Insense come up shy of dominating the prospective listener. This definitely isn’t a pell-mell attempt at mixing genres, simply because there’s a cloud of precision hovering over this outing. Still, though, I wasn’t swayed by anything this Norwegian four-piece had to offer. Essential? Not hardly. Candlelight has much better things on the way….
6/10
Official Insense Website
Official Candlelight Records Website
