In Mourning is a Swedish Progressive Death Metal band which was formed in Falun in the year 2000. I was introduced to them a couple of years ago by their 2006 demo 'Grind Denial' which has actually drawn my attention easily and lead me then to their debut 'Shrouded Divine'. I really liked the band; rather okay Death Metal with a skillful touch of progression, vehement Death Metal vocals, touching clean vocals, tight drumming, atmosphere, fine riffs...etc. Even if you didn't like the music, you would have to admit In Mourning is a good band.
Then came this year - 2010 - with In Mourning hitting again, this time with 'Monolith'. I was so excited about it that I heard it as soon as it was out on the official In Mourning website. Honestly, I did expect better, but the album as a whole is good.
Monolith came way too melodic and somehow rather more mild than 'Shrouded Divine', still it strongly maintains the In Mourning musical style. In addition, it shows some great aspects of the band. The performance fairly deserves 10/10; I consider this almost flawless, Tobias Netzell is doing a great job on vocals and guitars, Bjorn Pettersson and Tim Nedergard as well are showing great guitar skills, Pierre Stam and Christian Netzell on bass and drums respectively are doing a very well job as well sustaining the harmony. You could barely criticize a single point about the band's performance on 'Monolith'. The songwriting is somehow Katatonia-influenced in that storytelling style. The fact that most of the songs on the album tell different stories is consistent to the genre, though I didn't like the lyrics on some tracks, especially 'For You To Know'. Drumming on the whole album was good, and remarkably good on 'The Poet And The Painter Of Souls' and 'The Final Solution (Entering The Black Lodge)'. Vocals as well are a great remark on this album, being fairly brutal and inhumanly synchronized to the changes in guitar riffs. Clean vocals are adding an In Mourning trademarked beauty to the record, this was clearly manifested on 'The Smoke'.
Overall, this is not In Mourning's best - yet still another solid record that deserves appreciation from a promising band that has a lot of potential to be shown on further work
Highlights: Debris, The Poet And The Painter Of Souls, A Shade Of Plague.
-Karim.