In Mourning - Shrouded Divine review
Band: | In Mourning |
Album: | Shrouded Divine |
Style: | Melodic death metal, Progressive metal |
Release date: | January 2008 |
01. The Shrouded Divine
02. Amnesia
03. In The Failing Hour
04. By Others Considered
05. Grind Denial
06. The Art Of A Mourning Kind
07. The Black Lodge
08. Past October Skies (The Black Lodge Revisited)
In these dark ages when new labels pop out like mushrooms after the rain and release, usually without much distinction, any album that shows a little instrumental skill or a just a knack for copying old bands, it is not so often that a band coming out of nowhere takes you completely by surprise. It is even rarer that this band out of nowhere proposes an album as mature, intense and personal as the Swedish melodeath proggers of In Mourning have with “Shrouded Divine”.
Of course, no one can say that such a young act has peeled off all its influences already. That will come in due time. For now, In Mourning’s sound can bring quite a lot of Scandinavian references to mind, each being right and wrong depending on how you see things. The Opeth factor might seem quite obvious at first, especially as the vocalist (who does one hell of a good job in every vocal genre) sounds a lot like Akerfeldt, and also because In Mourning rely on 70’s prog rock and on the opposition between fast, brutal parts and clean passages. Actually, the acoustic/metal dynamics used by In Mourning remind more of old The Provenance, and they mainly use the prog elements to emphasize the melodic death metal riffing, and not the other way round. Various other passages can also recall bands such as Dark Tranquillity (for the use of melodic guitars), Katatonia (for the more doomy passages), Gardenian (for the general groove, the oriental touches of the guitars and some really catchy vocal lines like on “The Art Of A Mourning Kind”) and even European Thrash in the vein of Channel Zero (on some instrumental parts of “Amnesia” for example).
But, bear in mind that these are influences in the sound only. The actual songs are a whole other story, thanks to the very personal – and quite impressive for such a young band, I won’t stress that enough – songwriting. In Mourning merely acknowledge their references and use their major comprehension of progressive dynamics to cast them in a new mould. Thus, every song creates a universe of its own, each with its own sensibility and its own story to tell. The use of three guitars also definitely plays an important part in establishing the band’s strong character. They allow In Mourning to churn out cool solos and at the same time to use the third guitar like keyboards, without losing any power.
Altogether this is a very impressive debut album by a band which has obviously already found its way. Since they (unlike what Opeth do sometimes) have already avoided the pitfall of losing themselves in over-extended proggish meanders, and just go straight to the point, I don’t really know what feature they could work on for the next album. All that can be said is this: you’re on the right way guys, just keep working like that.
Recommended.
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