Album Review: Insomniac, Om Moksha Ritam
Posted in Reviews on October 1st, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Insomniac are barely a minute into opening track “Meditation” — by then the ceremonial chime has been struck, so they’re officially underway — before their debut album, Om Moksha Ritam has revealed the creation of texture as a core facet of its purpose. The Atlanta-based then-five-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mike Morris — who played for a time in Zoroaster and whose death this past July changes the context of this release entirely — vocalist Van Bassman, guitarist Alex Avedissian, bassist Juan Garcia and drummer/vocalist Amos Rifkin present their first full-length through Blues Funeral Recordings as seven songs across a heady, immersive 47 minutes.
They use this time to reveal a nuance of approach that is as much post-metal as it is meditative doom as it is progressive heavy in its construction, bolstered by themes of journeying as given through the geologic features and biomes of (most of) the tracks themselves, as “Meditation” unfurls a density that’s more about the wash resulting from layering elements rather than simple tonal heft. Semi-spoken, whisper-screamed and clean-sung parts are interwoven, and the sense of communion with the ethereal is prominent almost immediately. This is not a straight-ahead party band. It’s a mystical-doom crashing exploration-type band. I guess that’s still kind of a party.
“Meditation” bookends with pointedly proggy album finale “Awakening” to give a sense of the result of all this astral-projection-via-riffs, a kind of enlightenment won through the undertakings of “Mountain,” “Forest,” “Sea,” and so on. There’s a chime in “Mountain” as well, but the song is not misnamed for its largesse, and as its initial chug opens to a crash-punctuated roll, one is reminded some of Forming the Void‘s airier moments, or the likes of Rezn for the fog that seems to rest between the sound and the listener’s ears.
A gallop emerges, which is sort of a hook in itself, but Insomniac aren’t looking to toss out catchy numbers so much as convey depth (or height, in this case), and “Mountain” somewhat ironically to its title carries a sense of movement in its later twists of guitar and grooving push. The vocal arrangement once again displays a thoughtful creativity, and when they hit into the slowdown toward the finish (classic), the affect is as consuming as would seem to have been intended.
The subsequent “Snow and Ice” is the longest inclusion at 9:53, and comes to offer a more direct and — this isn’t the right word, but it’s the closest I’ve got — stark payoff in its ending, but the hypnotic, aughts-era-Mastodon-derived shimmer of guitar that makes up much of the track is the real highlight. Getting there, in other words. “Snow and Ice” soothes early coming off the finish of “Mountain,” and gradually solidifies around a low groove kept by Rifkin, whose fills grow increasingly intense as the build progresses.
The third cut might be the answer to how heavy Insomniac get on this first record, but if it hasn’t been clear from the first sentence above, I’ll say outright that Om Moksha Ritam is about more than just being heavy. A later example of this is the sense of float that persists in the penultimate “Desert,” which is not ungrounded (it has drums, for example) but lets its acoustic/electric resonance answer the lushness of melody in the earlier centerpiece “Forest,” which answers back to much of what “Mountain” and “Snow and Ice” accomplish in terms of build, but is distilled in the doing across an album-shortest 4:23 runtime; toying with efficiency and structure, letting parts dwell when it feels right; all of this is dug-in in a positive sense.
As given to creating a wash as Insomniac are — and this should be considered something different from ‘crushing,’ which in my stoner headcanon is more definitively about tone — it’s easy to get lost in the proceedings as a listener and sort of snap back with the next change. “Forest” sees this become part of the dynamic of the band in a different way, broadening their reach even as it seems to rein in impulses toward longer-form expression. It’s fluid either way, and almost can’t help but be with its echoing vocals and cave-reverb, and so on.
These also become part of the persona of the release, and as “Forest” starts a mini-trilogy of three shorter tracks, with “Sea” and “Desert” behind, each one offers something distinct from the others — “Sea” starts out like drunken-regret QOTSA in a slog, builds suitable waves of distortion before the tide rolls out, while desert is clearer-eyed in its course toward the concluding payoff, with layers of vocals, sitar-esque guitar, and the full brunt of volume brought to a head before it’s done.
It’s unsurprising that “Awakening” should pick up from this moment, since it’s not the first time the band has by then employed finishing big and starting subdued going from one track to the next (see “dynamic,” above), but the closer has a sense of patience in its rollout and brings the vocal melody forward, finding Alice in Chainsy resolution after the three-minute mark en route to a resurgent gallop and a solo-topped onslaught finish. Somewhere in there a chime is hit again and it rings out to cap, which is fair for ending the meditation that began with — wait for it — “Meditation.” Although they don’t lack for impact really anywhere on the record, one of the chief accomplishments of Om Moksha Ritam is aesthetic.
The depth of production/mix become an essential piece of the songs’ character, and define a feeling of reaching into the unknown that’s all the more impressive as it seems to be a willfully honed aspect of their sound. It is somewhat inevitable that the band will be changed from here on. They not only have dealt with the trauma of losing Morris in the time leading up to a release that may well define their trajectory going forward, but on a practical level, even if they find another guitarist/vocalist to take up the role, the dynamic as presented across this material will shift as a simple matter of it involving somebody different. Knowing that, and in consideration of Om Moksha Ritam among the most cohesive and engagingly plotted debuts of the year — while at the same time fostering a mystique on a sheer sonic level — the record feels even more special.
Insomniac, Om Moksha Ritam (2025)
Insomniac, “Awakening” official video
Insomniac, “Mountain” official video
Blues Funeral Recordings website
Blues Funeral Recordings on Bandcamp
