It's quite hard to improve on a work as solid as "Shrouded Divine", which for me is one of the greatest metal albums to ever be made, but since the first time I heard In Mourning I knew these musicians had enough talent to make fantastic, original music, and I won't say they disappointed me with "Monolith", but I can't say that I was completely satisfied with it either.
Just as "Shrouded Divine" and future releases, "Monolith" is a conceptual album which seems to kind of follow its predecessor. The music hasn't change too much from the last album, and that's something I did find underwhelming, because the songs present in this release are like washed-up versions of their older ones. Don't get me wrong here, these songs are quite good, but they don't have the same atmosphere or feeling that some songs like "The Black Lodge" or "The Shrouded Divine" had, they are melodic and technical, and they still have unconventional song structures and various, heavy riffs accompanied by distorted arpeggios and octave chords, as well as lead riffs, but as I said, the sad, melancholic atmosphere in those songs isn't as present as in the ones from "Shrouded Divine". There are some really nice stuff here and there, such as the chorus of "The Poet and the Painter of Souls" for example or the post-chorus for "For You to Know" with that calm, bluesy part, but I've heard many concepts and even riffs taken from previous compositions and modified, which isn't exactly bad, as every single band out there as probably recycled riffs and licks, but once again, knowing what the members of this band were and are capable of doing, I think that was uncalled for.
Moving on, I've found some things that, at least for me, don't fit too well with the album, like the first verse of "For You to Know", which uses those raspy vocals, which remind me a bit of some of those electro-hardcore bands, and things like that kind of ruin the atmosphere for these songs. Another thing that I have to criticize is how much octave chords are used to harmonize and create melodies, and that gets a bit repetitive after some songs, but there aren't many ways to create good-sounding melodies with a guitar without it sounding weak, so I gotta let that pass (I use octaves like a motherfucker when I compose, so yeah, I'm a bit of a hypocrite).
Something that I've never actually noted in any of my (at the time) 2 reviews for this band, is how the manage to do progressive, technical music with so many time signature changes, switching between 4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 8/12 and some others, with these unconventional structures which are a bit confusing, and yet make all of this accessible to the average metal listener, you don't get confused while listening to this, nor you feel weird when you hear riffs in 5/4, because all these time signature changes and even scale changes are so well implemented that you just don't notice them.
Yet another thing that I feel like it's important to note and that is one of the reasons why I didn't rate this album a %100, is how forgettable it is; I can remember some specific parts of some songs (mainly because they are either catchy or I liked them), but I sometimes can't remember half of these songs, not even the intros or sometimes the names, and I've heard this release at least 3 times and heard many of the songs of it in shuffle through playlists or at random moments, and I rarely can remember many things. Maybe I'm just not actually paying attention to the music, or it's because the songs get a bit boring due to a lack of consistency to deliver enjoyable parts, and it sometimes do be like that; the songs can go from a melodic, energetic part to a calm interlude, which works similar to a build-up which climaxes in the end of the song, but at that point you end up a bit disappointed, or at least I do.
Now, reading the lyrics, they are quite good, pure poetry that tries to tell a story; there are some really awesome verses like "Scared of never seeing you again / But I never knew you anyway" (For You to Know) or "Everything is words in a poet's mind / And the teller of his tales, are deaf and blind" (The Poet and the Painter of Souls). The lyrical genius of Tobias Netzell (who I guess writes this) is one that I could never even dream of, he's light years ahead of me and many other really good lyricists, maybe I'm exaggerating here, but not even some of the highly acclaimed poets I've read wrote stuff like that; these lyrics are something between a well manufactured literature and poetry, dark and dramatic, this album (and all others from this band) plays like a book thanks to these lyrics, a book you must hear and feel to understand it, instead of reading it.
To go finishing this review (which is definitely the longest one I wrote so far), the audio quality is very nice, no fuck-ups in the performance, maybe there are some instruments in the mix that are quite low, the bass for an example isn't as present as in "Shrouded Divine", and sometimes some guitars are a bit obscure by the heavy rhythm riffs, but it was all probably planned to fit with the atmosphere of the songs.
Even thought I showed a bit of discontent with some stuff in this album, I think it's a pretty solid work, but not for what this band can do; if you never heard of this band, you can definitely go check it out and start by this album (although I'd seriously suggest to listen to Shrouded Divine first), it's not the best thing In Mourning has to offer but it's still years ahead of most metal bands in my opinion.