Tortura Insomniae [Import]

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• ASIN: B0000563EX
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,791 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Unique Death Metal mixed with violins, female vocals and Scandinavian folk music. 1997. Black Sun Records. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent debut ..., November 15, 2001

By 

Zakk Wong (Selangor, Malaysia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tortura Insomniae (Audio CD)

Sweden has produced yet another awesome melodic death metal outfit, this time under the name of Ebony Tears.

This album was produced by Tomas Skogsberg, which probably explains why the guitar sounds extremely 'scooped', producing the same effect that you hear on most Entombed albums. I have never been a great fan of guitar distortion without the mids, because this produces a very hollow sounding distortion. Anyway, apart from that, the overall of mix of the album is pretty good. The drums are audible, although the snare and kick drum could be improved with more bass added to it.

Tortura Insomniae boasts 9 great sounding metal tracks, running at 53:02 minutes. The opening track, 'Moonlight' has a quiet intro which starts off with nice clean guitars and this is followed by a fast and furious death metal riff complemented by a violin ! The opening of 'Nectar of Eden' and 'With Tears in My Eyes' are simply a gem. They have such beautiful sounding melodies played by the violin, followed by brutal riffing and skin bashing. The heaviest song would probably be 'Involuntary Existence', which has such an awesome main riff. The vocals on the chorus are quite catch as well. Next comes the surprising track, 'Opacity', which opens with such grace, and followed by unforgiving death metal brutality - simply awesome !

The vocals on this album are your typical death metal growls. The highlights are the special guest appearance of Carina Olsson who lends a nice, gentle female voice on a few tracks. I hope she (and the other guest vocalist) plays a more active role in their future albums !

Overall, each and every song is well composed. They have plenty of tempo changes filled with plenty of great guitar riffing and melodies. Hats off to Conny Jonsson, the guitarist, for writing all the lyrics and songs on this album.

If you are sick of the cheesy In Flames style of melodic death, then Ebony Tears would be your perfect answer. Be warned though, this album is entirely different from their new release, Evil as Hell, which is a total thrash assault ...

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent.., December 28, 2000

By 

"bluurgh" (Philadelphia, Pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tortura Insomniae (Audio CD)

This is one of the very first underground metal albums i heard and to say it was a breathtaking introduction would be an understatement. This isn't brutal music, but rather beautiful doom-like death with sad,meaningful lyrics. All 55 minutes of this CD are perfection. My favorites are Freak Jesus, With Tears in my Eyes, and Moonlight. Great use of Violin on some tracks though i found the female vocals to be somewhat irritating, especially on Opacity. Great artwork too, i stared at it and got lost in it's beauty for like an hour while listening to this the first night i got it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid 4 stars, December 21, 2001

By 

Pic McGee (DUBAI United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tortura Insomniae (Audio CD)

A four piece band from Sweden. They consider themselves "a blend between swedish folkmusic, "At The Gates", "Meshuggah" and "Entombed"." But I think they are more like "At The Gates" meets "Dark Lunacy". They are nothing compared to the almighty ATG. But they prove themselves worthy adversaries. It's not super-heavy-blowyourearsoff metal, but it's good. Raging rythmes, great leads, the drums beats are ok, nothing special there. But the uniqueness of these guys is their fusion of ATG style rythmes with melodious violins. Esspecially in Nectars of Eden, one of my favorite songs. Reminds me a lot of Dark Lunacy, although Dark Lunacy used more classical instruments. The only song that I don't like is Opacity. The female vocals on this track are poorly done. Thankfully they only last about a minute but it totally detracts from the feel of the song. After the first minute the song rages and is quite good, but the female vocals are just no good.

-0.5 for Opacity and -0.5 because the production seems as though it could be better.

Definately take a look at Nectas of Eden, Evergrey, and Moonlight