In Mourning – Monolith (2010)

Hailing from Sweden, In Mourning returns after their highly acclaimed debut album “Shrouded Divine”. The new album “Monolith” marks a very big step in the right direction from the band since they have greatly improved their sound and show great promise for the future.

While “Monolith” features more experimentation than the band’s previous album, it still features a well crafted Melodic/Progressive Death Metal sound that makes this band standout from the rest. Some of the experimentation in this album is not 100% to my liking, like the screamed vocals, but the growls and overall structure of the songs make up for this.

Featuring three guitars, this band creates very interesting songs that have very catchy riffs that give enough depth to their sound to not seem like clones of anybody else. The bass guitar is also very well balanced in the mix and accompanies most melodic parts to perfection, another thing that is not very common to hear in Melodic DM releases these days. The drumming is very solid as well giving the perfect backdrop for all the guitar and bass guitar melodies to work together in perfect unison.

Like I previously mentioned, the ‘screamed’ vocals are annoying when used, and might indicate the band’s intention to switch to a more ‘Melo-Death’ approach in the future (I hope not). But the growls and ‘harsher’ vocals make up for the lame parts and keep the album’s score in the 90%. In overall Tobias Netzell does a pretty good job in handling the vocals in this record, being very consistent and never getting dull.

For a second release “Monolith” is a very solid one, and shows that this young band has great potential. The albums flows very nicely showcasing 8 songs with great guitar melodies and powerful vocals, enough to please any fans of Melodic or Progressive Death Metal.

Release: January 25th, 2010

Country: Sweden