News Posts

Finnish melodeath masters Insomnium unveiled the title track of their upcoming EP ‘Song Of The Dusk’, set for release in November via Century Media Records, with an epic video! An extension of their earlier released ‘Anno 1696’ album that you won’t want to miss out on!

Finnish melancholic melodeath masters Insomnium debuted their new single and video ‘White Christ’, featuring Sakis Tolis, last week. The 2nd single from the upcoming album ‘Anno 1696’, set for release in February via Century Media Records!

Oceanhoarse is celebrating Ozztober again, this time with the Ozzy classic ‘Bark at the Moon’ with guest appearances from Hannes Kett and Markus Vanhala!

Finnish melodeath masters Insomnium present another new single ‘The Antagonist’, which will be featured on their upcoming EP ‘Argent Moon’!

Members of several folk metal bands gathered under the name The Wee Folk Metal Crew and released their first musical collaboration under the form of a cover of Insomnium’s ‘While We Sleep’!

Wacken unleashed 11 more names during their Halloween live stream show with a performance from Hämatom!

Century Media tries to soften the blow of all the cancelled festivals by organizing a massive online Century Media “Isolation Festival”!

Rockfest adds 12 more names from both Finland and other countries to the 2020 line-up, check it out!

Tuska unleashed a bunch of names for 2020!

Wolfheart gets recognition for their talent and get signed to one of the major metal labels: Napalm Records!

Festival Reports

One of the highlights of our adventures in the Finnish Autumn/Winter season, was most definitely the 3rd edition of Black Box Mikkeli, with on the 2nd day a celebration of Finnish metal with Lastout, I Am Your God, Balance Breach, Insomnium, the foreign black metal storm that is Gaerea, and of course an amazing set by Bloodred Hourglass, bringing their latest album in full!

SaariHelvetti is back! The island of hell brought a line-up with only Finnish bands again and we had no complaints, not one bit!

The very last day of Belgium’s biggest yearly metal event with the very last (we promise) show of Kiss!

Tuska 2017 promised to be a huge party for metal and rock lovers. With their 20th anniversary they geared up to make it one hell of a celebration…

Photo Reports

Besides starting the new year properly looking to the future, this month we’re also still looking back at all the awesomeness that 2023 brought us. One of those awsome things was the already 3rd edition of the by Bloodred Hourglass curated festival Black Box Mikkeli. They were able to bring a killer line-up again on the 2nd day of their event with besides a fantastic show by themselves, Insomnium, Gaerea, Balance Breach, I Am Your God and Lastout!

Insomnium came, saw and conquered at their ‘Anno 1696’ release shows at a sold out Tavastia, and so did The Abbey with their captivating doom music!

Ultima Ratio Fest has been bringing a proper collection of metal bands around Europe with Moonspell, Insomnium, Borknagar, Wolfheart and Hinayana. Sadly it seemed the crowd was mostly asleep at this stop at Backstage Munich, regardless some great metal music was played this night!

Insomnium finally got to do their Finnish tour with Finntroll and we were at the very first stop in Helsinki!

Pictures of the first day of Finland’s SaariHelvetti festival held in Tampere in 2021! With a whole slab of quality Finnish metal bands from start to finish!

The MTV Headbanger’s Ball is always a very good show, and this year was no different. If you want to see our photo impression, this is it!

The pictures of a weekend of celebrations and discoveries at the 20th anniversary of Tuska Open Air!

How does a night of “Winter metal” look like?

Lists

The summer festival season is over, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of exciting fests happening over the next couple of months this autumn/winter in Finland with Helsinki Techfest and Kaamos Metal Cruise already this weekend, HKI SKEPU FEST V, Lost In Music, Steelchaos, Hellsinki Industrial Festival 2023, Fall Fest 2023, Black Box Mikkeli, Melancholy Mass Festival 2023 and Unholy Winter Fest!

If you are still looking for a great summer destination, here are 10 festivals that might make Finland the ideal place to go for you with #Horizon23, Rockfest, Tuhdimmat Tahdit, Nummirock, Tuska, John Smith Festival, SaariHelvetti, Dark River Festival, Hellsinki Metal Festival and Flow Festival!

February has some great releases again, and we’re looking forward to albums from artists like Memoriam, In Flames, Paramore, dEUS, Mordkaul, Ulthar, Avatar, The Abbey, Insomnium, Host, Gorillaz and Heidevolk!

An albums of the year list that focuses on quite a few deathcore and metalcore releases, but also has room for some more melancholic affairs.

After endless debating the list is done with one clear winner!

A bit of everything, but all high quality stuff!

Gig Reports

At the end of February, Insomnium released their new album ‘Anno 1696’ and celebrated in style with 2 completely sold out shows at the legendary Helsinki rock club Tavastia, with support from the new doom collective The Abbey!

Insomnium finally got to do their Finnish tour with Finntroll and we were at the very first stop in Helsinki!

Masters of melancholic melodic death metal, Insomnium, bring their masterpiece ‘Winter’s Gate’ live through a streaming concert and we were there!

Interviews

A talk with Niilo and Ville of Insomnium about their new album ‘Anno 1696’, how the short story it’s based on was specially written by Niilo for the album, how much they love putting together special editions and a kind of whole experience for their fans and how they got Johanna Kurkela and Sakis Tolis to join them on some tracks!

Watch the chat we had with Markus Vanhala about the new Insomnium EP ‘Argent Moon’, the upcoming new work of Omnium Gatherum and his new black metal project I Am The Night!

Interview with the melodic death metallers from Re-Armed about their upcoming new album “Ignis Aeternum”.

We talked with guitarist Ville Friman about recording “Winter’s Gate”, touring, branding, beer and science!

Talking about beer, phones and the “good old days”…

Album Reviews

With ‘Anno 1696’, Insomnium created a new refreshing album that shows a different kind of style than what they have released of late. It became a raw, blackened and fierce release that really embodies the dark part of history that it’s based on. Out this Friday via Century Media Records!