In the deep melting pot of death metal known as Sweden, we find a group of young men who call themselves INISANS. Cutting their teeth on their self-released debut, "Morbid Visions of Death," the ambitious four-piece displayed from the start that they are more than capable of melting faces in the big leagues with a grim album that personifies exactly what its title implies. With it's lo-fi, hollow-sounding recording and its cover filtered in the darkest shade of black, you can't help but feel a sense of emptiness in the presence of this youthful group of death bringers. Two years later, "Morbid Visions of Death" was reissued as a split cassette with a French band cut of the same cloth, known as SKELETHAN. The quartet had clearly made a name for themselves in paying homage to dirty old-school death metal.

Enter debut full-length: "Transitions," an album that takes that formula even further and attempts to make a sound known for its rottenness a little more fresh. The album immediately opens with a full frontal assault of tremolo picking and skank beats, with the song "Tombstone." Listeners familiar with the previous release will immediately notice the vast improvement in the quality of the recording, a well deserved graduation, no doubt credited to Swedish label Blood Harvest. About halfway through this opener, we are shown these are not the same young boys we remember as two very thrashy solos force the listener to head bang even harder.

"Darkness Profound" does exactly as the title suggests and throws a shade of black onto everything as things slow down but quickly revert back to the pure, thrashy speed we are used to from the album. "Demon Wings" starts with an absolute beatdown of cymbal chokes one cannot help but violently bang their head to, interspersed with slower, solo-claden grooves.

"Cavern of Covenant," the albums penultimate track employs most of the same aforementioned techniques with more raspy and brutal bellowing, soon slowing the tempo down as the end is nigh. The slow tempo is carried over into the closer, but only briefly. "Void Walker" instantly picks this tempo back up and with the minor scales and dissonant chord progressions, one cannot help but hear the Scandinavian influence here, as even I thought this was a Blackened Death metal upon my first listen.

Do not be fooled though, this is indeed a straight death metal release, one that may not be for everyone as many of the tracks follow the same familiar structure. Overall, I am satisfied with the release by its vast improvement in the quality of the sound but it is not something I would listen to more than a handful of times.