Insignify

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Insignify is the debut studio album by Indian progressive rock band Rainburn. It was released on 7 November 2018, recorded in 2018, and runs 48 minutes and 6 seconds. The album was released independently and mastered at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden.

Insignify is a concept album about searching for identity, significance, and purpose within the perceived meaninglessness of life. After releasing the EP Canvas of Silence, Rainburn looked for a label to release the full album. In May 2017 they released their first music video, for “Merchant of Dreams.” The project was initially talked about as The Anthropic Conceit with a crowdfunding plan, but by 2018 it was promoted under the final title Insignify.

On 1 October 2018, the band released the video for “Suicide Note,” a song inspired by the verse “I could not simplify myself” by Agha Shahid Ali. The album was made available for listening on YouTube on 6 November, the eve of its release. A lyric video for “Within” appeared on 5 December; the song is based on Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and features additional vocals from Vidyaa Prakash. It marks a turning point in the narrative, returning to the brighter sound of the early tracks as the protagonist finds some inner peace.

Vats Iyengar, the lead vocalist and guitarist, drew on a wide range of influences as he wrote the album. Insignify explores themes such as existentialism, narcissism, the craving for importance, insecurity, and the search for meaning from an artist’s perspective. Iyengar aimed to craft the music organically. Influences include Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation, Hindustani classical music, and Johann Sebastian Bach, the latter inspiring the Bach-like fugue in the track “Purpose.”

The title Insignify combines two ideas: Signify (to indicate or symbolize) and Insignificance (being unimportant). Rolling Stone India named Insignify one of the best Indian albums of 2018, praising the band’s diversity and dynamic growth across tracks like “Merchant of Dreams,” “Elusive Light,” and the more intense “Purpose,” followed by the soulful “Within” and the bluesy closer “School of Atlantis.”

All lyrics are written by Vats Iyengar, and all music is composed by Iyengar, with “The Wait” co-written by Manu Shrivastava and “Someone New” co-written by Praveen Kumar.