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Originally a Gothic Metal act, the Swedish act In Mourning have taken the "gothic" feel of their previous musical style, and changed things around to be more of a Progressive Melodic Death Metal act. Their second full length release, the band continues to work on this style and putting out another creative album dubbed Monolith. Anyone who has heard the band's debut full length Shrouded Divine knows what to expect from this release, but if you have not had the fortune to hear it, then Monolith is the next best place to start. The entires on here are very creative, and run the gambit between being very beautiful to rather dark and melancholic, much like their previous release. Once the music kicks in on the track "For You to Know", it's clear that this is not like any other recently founded Progressive tinged Metal act out there. For a good amount of the time, In Mourning has some pretty intense music to many of their tracks, as well as a few songs that really border on the more Progressive Death Metal aspect and bring up memories of bands such as Opeth. The perfect example of this influence can be found during the track "The Smoke" which has some creative guitar riffs and a powerful, kind of upbeat chorus, whereas there are plenty of other tracks that focus on being nice and heavy like the starting track "For You to Know". This song sets the tone for the album, but in more ways then just one. The main problem behind Monolith lies with the longer, more Progressive tracks. "Smoke" is a great song as a whole, but there really is no need for the song to last as long as it does. In Mourning seem to drag the song on after the initial "hard and heavy" phase that starts the album out, then eventually cuts of a slow pace section that involves singing, and the track just isn't the same after that as it seems to slowly struggle back to what it all started with, but winds up just getting boring through drawn out guitars that seem to just never end. While you can't help but respect the band's creative urge to try to make this track beautiful, the next song, "A Shade of Plague", really puts the band at their best once more by retaining a very heavy feeling with an intense chorus with the rest of the song taking a somewhat Progressive feel thanks to the gaps between riffs and sudden stops in music, as well as a section where the guitars are of a low quality and distorted in the background. Aside that you have "The Final Solution (Entering the Black Lodge)" which has many of the same pitfalls as "Smoke", musically. The only difference here is that instead of dropping to a very slow and lighter segment to introduce some clean singing, In Mourning let's the music go to a long period of what sounds of rain before the music starts to once again slowly pick up to close out the song. Essentially, the song is composed the same way as "Smoke", and is as just as boring at the end when the music shifts, leaving you want to skip ahead if you have the ability since you won't miss much, or just all together skipping the closing of the track if you don't feel compelled to stick with it to hear the end of the song for whatever reason. These instances really show a weakness in the band's ability to create longer songs that are actually entertaining, and sometimes the shorter ones fall prey to this downfall as well, like "Pale Eye Resolution", which has the potential to be a good heavy track that inexplicably goes at a slower pace and starts to feel a little repetative. Luckily the music kicks right back up after that little period of filler, but the damage is still done. All in all, Monolith is an impressive album, but it falters due to the band trying to extend songs when they could have easily just added a new song with all the time they waste on this release. Outside that, the shorter tracks that really hone in on the band's Death Metal side really show great promise. If the band were to continue writing more shorter songs and keep the Progressive tinged sound they have, they could put out one hell of an album. Until then, we're stuck listening to this release by In Mourning, which wets the palette, but sadly doesn't appease the appetite that is brought on by the tremendous start of this album. |
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