I’ve been following The Voynich Code for a while now, and Insomnia is still the record I keep going back to the most. Not because it’s their heaviest album or their most technical one. It just feels the most locked in emotionally. Something is exhausting about it. The whole thing sounds like it was written by people who hadn’t slept in days and honestly didn’t care about making the cleanest or safest version of these songs. I mean that as a compliment.

The Voynich Code comes out of Portugal, and they’ve been mixing deathcore, progressive metal, and atmospheric stuff together for years now, but this was the album where everything clicked for me personally. What I like is that they don’t overdo the ambient parts. A lot of bands stop the momentum every thirty seconds because they want you to admire how cinematic they are. This record doesn’t do that. Even the slower moments feel nervous. “A Flicker of Life” and “Homecoming” especially got stuck in my head because the album never fully settles down. There’s always this feeling underneath everything that it could fly apart at any second.

“Slaves To A Machine” still hits me hard every time I hear it. Same with “A Dying Age.” There’s so much movement in these songs compared to a lot of modern deathcore, where everything just becomes nonstop noise after a while. The grooves matter here. Even tracks like “Sleep Paralysis” and “Hypnopompic” feel uncomfortable in the right way instead of sounding like filler between heavier moments. The album never really loses momentum either.

What I’ve always liked about The Voynich Code is that they never sound like they’re trying too hard to impress people with how technical they are, even though they obviously can play. That’s where a lot of bands lose me. Everything becomes a showcase instead of actual songs. Here, the emotion comes through first. The frustration. The burnout. The anxiety underneath everything. Some parts of this album feel like the walls are closing in, then suddenly a melody cuts through the chaos for a few seconds before the entire thing caves back in again. That balance is hard to pull off without sounding forced.

And honestly, I still think this band deserves way more attention than they get. Every time I bring up Insomnia to somebody who missed it, the reaction is usually the same: “How have I not heard of this before?” I had the same thought when the album first dropped. There’s a lot of heavy music out there now that feels built for clips instead of full albums. Insomnia never felt like that to me. I still throw it on late at night when I want something heavy that actually feels real.

The Voynich Code's Insomnia can be found here or wherever sleep-deprived metal fans disappear for a few hours.   As always, remember that celluloid fades, but the dissonance remains.