HeavyHardMetalmania: Brutal art with Insanity Reigns Supreme

Hi guys, here I am again and this time with awesome black death metal for you. The band I’m going to talk about is the experienced Belgian Insanity Reigns Supreme. I was really anxious to get my hands on their upcoming fourth studio album entitled “Unorthodox”, that will be released on January 16th through Shiver Records, and finally the streaming arrived. It goes without saying that my expectations were concretized. Once again the band demonstrates their imperative nature. With already 25 years of existence their furious infused metal (combining black/death and doom) continues strong.

The follow-up to 2009’s renowned opus “Occultus Insanus Damnatus” presents as central theme the duality of human nature and its macabre consequences. The 11 track full-length is very entertaining to the extent that its diversity will give you the right mood to listen to it over again. The work will never fall into oblivion, meaning it will never get boring. Song after song the album grows and gets more interesting, almost like a good plot reaching its climax. There are many jewels in “Unorthodox”, from brutal death screams, crazy and distorted riffs, slow and heavy doom rhythms to diabolic whispering, clean guitar playing and dark atmospheres.

Sadly there are some negative points about the album. Despite the fact that it gets more interesting in the course of time some tracks are a little vague. Take the songs ‘Moonlight Sacrifice’ (a short classical cover of Moonlight Sonata with a special touch) and ‘The Calling’ (00:39 seconds of chants) as examples. While others may disagree, In my point of view one should always regard the album as a whole but even so those songs don’t contribute much to its greatness.

However and using the band' words: The duality can be found in many ways on the CD itself. These intros (talking about the songs refered above) are part thereof. Since the songs themselves are brutal, these intros are deliberately more fragile and form a counterpoint to the other songs. Also the intros themselves have duality in them. Moonlight sacrifice was played live by an innocent 12 year old who has yet to experience the horrors of this world. Then this innocence gets violated by adding the sounds of some depraved individuals in full action. The same is true for The Calling. The voice is almost angelic, but her message is VADE RETRO SPIRITUS SANCTUS, which roughly translates into fuck off holy ghost!

As you can see and as I said, the album as a whole shows a great passion from the band that thought well in every aspect of the concept presented. For that i give them my cheers.

The album’s artwork is really cool. It was designed by “Septic Flesh” frontman Seth Siro Anton. The slipcase version of the album further visualizes man’s cruel reality with its two different covers, hidden details and penetrating hints. Seth Siro Anton commented: “It's always a dark pleasure to work with Insanity Reigns Supreme. Whilst working on this project, it is without a doubt one of most bizzare artworks I have ever created, while I was trying to explore the great beauty of Grotesque in Dark Art”.

Insanity Reigns Supreme had the following to say: “Work in the studio has never been this intense and needed full input and drive from every band member to pull it off. Andy drove us to our limits and the end product clearly shows this intensity”.

Those words describe perfectly the great effort of the band. The album is in fact intense and diverse. Andy has done a great job in the studio but the cheering goes to all te members of the band. That said and at large the band managed to create a invigorating piece. They show that even after 25 years they continue to do it the right way. I hope that more years will come to hear these guys’ brutal art.

One melee with the words, ideas and its paradoxes... albuns that are news, the reviews at "HeavyHardMetalmania.net", always with its watermark, Pedro Ribeiro, with love for beer... sorry, music from an early age, he studied piano and singing from 7 to 14 years, then, devoted himself to the study of the guitar for 5 years. "The wisdom is found in the extremes, all extreme Metal here!"

"Unorthodox" was recorded at the Stage One Studios in Germany with Andy Classen, best known for his work with Belphegor, Legion of the Damned and Destruction.