Live Review : Insomnium + Conjurer @ Academy 3, Manchester on January 20th 2020

We, at ROCKFLESH Towers have pretty varied tastes. However, there is one thing that we do all agree on, Conjurer are on the cusp of something very special indeed. Every time I witness them live, they have moved on another few notches in their journey towards greatness. They seem to be in the throes of a fast-tracked evolution, growing and morphing in front of our very eyes. They are no longer Black Metal (in fact it is arguable if they were ever actually Black Metal in the first place or whether it was just a convenient label to give them). They have transformed into something that defies genre definition. It is heavy, crushing and filled with precise driving riffs and blistering blast-beats. But it also has its own unique fragility.

On numerous occasions tonight, the coursing noise will suddenly cease and become some that is delicate, intricate and minimal. At one point, Dan Nightingale abandons the microphone altogether and screams un-amplified into the void, accompanied only by on the edge of hearing guitars. It is moments like these that makes your hair stand on end and Conjurer’s set is simply full of those moments. It is quite astonishing how they are contorting and reimagining the definition of Heavy. Yes, musically they are coarse and brutal, but they present their stuff in such a disconcerting and unconventional way , that it feels unlike anything else in this space. It constantly side-steps your expectations. It stops, starts and stops again, it changes pace and tempo and just consistently confounds and wrong-foots. It will slow down when you expect it to speed up, it twists when you expect it to turn and it just never goes where you think it is going. They are, quite simply, the future of extreme Metal. Stunning, just, just Stunning.

For most of Scandinavia’s Metal royalty a UK tour tends to mean one solitary show in London (Amorphis, Soilwork, Sabaton and Dimmi Borgir, I am looking at all of you). Insomnium are different (aside from the fact that they are Finnish which isn’t technically Scandinavia, but I digress), as they are treating their UK fan’s with the respect that they deserve and headed off on a comprehensive ten dates tour of these emerald isles. Their fans have responded in kind and even though it is a cold Mancunian Monday evening in January, the Academy 3 is packed. Additionally everyone here is clad in Insomnium merch. Without fanfare, they have become the thinking person’s favourite Metal band, unashamedly poetic and literate. Tonight, it is back to the four-piece line up as band mastermind and chief songwriter Ville Friman has chosen to sit out the European tour to concentrate on his other job as a Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology at York University (told you they were not an ordinary metal band). However, Jani Liimatainen is a more than adequate replacement with his decades of experience of playing with almost every Finnish Metal band going. 

Insomnium sit in that sweet spot between power and death metal. Musically, they do have jagged brittle edges (especially the harsh vocals), but essentially their musical output is highly melodic with massive soaring riffs and gorgeous harmonies. Their sound is big, bold and all-consuming, but equally has moments of heartbreaking tenderness. There is a real emotional rawness to all that they do, yes there are huge towering solos, but there is also intricate interludes that bury deep into your very soul. The key’s and acoustic stuff may well be on a backing-track, but this is still a veritable masterclass in how you need to be virtuoso musicians to create music that is this affecting, passionate and emotive.

We get six tracks from new album, “Heart Like a Grave”, alongside a quite impressive wander through their formidable back catalogue. In fact, the only glaring omission is anything from 2016 sublime “Winter’s Hill”, presumably because of the band’s decision to only play it in 40 minute plus entirety. What is obvious throughout is the connection between the band and their audience. This is a band that exists because of and for its fans, that irreplicable relationship is obvious all the way through the show. The look of pure joy and abandonment in people’s faces as the band power into 'While We Sleep' or 'In Groves of Death’, is utterly infectious to behold. Ultimately, this is not a band here to make new friends, they are here to entertain their existing hardcore following and from the happy faces on display here tonight, they achieve that in spades.