I’ve been sitting in front of the computer for the past hour listening to In Mourning’s upcoming sophomore album, Monolith, and I’m once again impressed by the band (and yes, I’ve had a bit o’ the green).  Monolith is a slick blend of straight up brutal death, melodic death, and progressive. I hate comparing a band to Opeth (everyone compares every death metal band to Opeth), but the  similarities are unmistakable.  They’ve got a great groove, plenty of chugging, death metal/black metal growls, and healthy portions of progressiveness and melody.  The thing is, they don’t come off as a blatant rip off of Opeth (not that that’d necessarily be a bad thing).  The band mixes it up a bit by conjouring a bit of Gothenburg (think Dark Tranquillity) coupled with atmosphere a la Insomnium.

The album unfortunately starts off a bit on the wrong foot when Tobais (lead singer/guitarist) ops to use some hardcore-ish vocals on the track “For you to Know.”  Thankfully, the vocals aren’t much a theme on the album, and only really appear on the opening track.  From there the album really takes off with the best track on the album, “Debris.”  In Mourning really pulls off all their trademarks with this tune: crushing riffs, brutal deep vocals, emotional interludes and melodies abound.  The next couple tracks are also in the same vein, but there’s a bit of a lull from there.  In comparison to In Mourning’s debut, The Shrouded Divine, the album just doesn’t quite have the impact.  It certainly doesn’t mean it’s not a successful album… I just wouldn’t consider it quite the masterpiece their debut was/is.

Regardless, the album sits at a low 4 stars, in my humble opinion.

If you’ve never heard of the band, I’d highly suggest picking up their debut.  You can also preview Monolith in its entirety at http://inmourning.net/monolith or check them out at http://www.myspace.com/in_mourning.

For those a bit lazy, here’s one of my favorite tunes off of their debut: