Hellsike! – Insanitarium Review

by

Metal music is such a splendor thing. Once in a while we receive bands that aren’t exactly what a fan would dream of. I mean their vocals are strange, their instrumentals are not exactly polished and the recording or production aren’t exactly the expected to the fan and, mainly, to the band. That’s what we have here with Hellsike! and “Insanitarium” a power trio that all of the above is right.

The band is so seriously linked and chained to the glorious Metal of the 1980s that “Insanitarium” really sounds as if it were recorded back then with all the pros and cons and I have to say that the cons are the majority. And wanna know what? That’s the charm of “Insanitarium.” Guitars solos as in “Hangmans Bay” sound out of tune and pretty nieve. So do the effects which recall to the independent scene of some off the mainstream studios from countries that weren’t part of the pioneers and got the second wave of Metal as Brazil, Norway, Italy and even Finland. The thing is that the studios’ staff didn’t know anything about recording Metal music and often couldn’t record the guitars properly. The quality of the guitar pedals helped a lot as well. Some of them sounded as a bunch of furious crazy bees with their zooming sound. That’s what Hellsike! feels like. There’s also a fun fact about this kind of album, as soon as the bands gather some respect and money to record in a professional studio their music goes down. I don’t know why but many bands that had a remarkable, but unpolished debut album slipped away on the second. Some music is to be raw… Does anybody remember Thor?

Hellsike! follows a cutting edge tendency in today’s Metal music that is to use some cinema and movie features as if the song were in a film. “Insanitarium” kicks off this way with “Welcome Inside (intro)” that goes to the tittle track “Insanitarium” where vocalist Ole Morten Kvarm does what is possible to keep the tune. Pay attention to the shrieking chorus. However the heart and passion that they do make it worth. I guess if “Insanitarium” were to be released in the 1980s it would some kind of cult album. Great ideas, lots of passion, tons of heart, but poor production. An amazing recipe for a cult Metal album.

Hellsikes! “Insanitarium” was released on March 21st via Hellsikes! Records.

Track Listing:

  1. Welcome Inside (intro)
  2. Insanitarium
  3. The Devil in Disguise
  4. Invisible Wounds
  5. Hangmans Bay
  6. River of Blood
  7. Farewell

Watch “Insanitarium” official music video here: