In Mourning
Shrouded Divine

A surprise. An astonishing surprise are these young "In Mourning". A Swedish band unknown to most, but with a decade-long groundwork worthy of respect, a tremendous desire to play and musical influences of considerable standing, which do not cater to the usual In Flames or Dark Tranquillity, no! Rather, what these guys offer is a mix of sonic refinement and elegance that manages to blend the best of Opeth's Progressive Death Metal with the dismal, catacomb-like, and enchanting riffs of Candlemass. All of this with disarming simplicity and catchiness.

The eight songs on this album, in fact, flow by with pleasure, and each one, once listened to, makes you want to rewind and enjoy once more the extraordinary power, the heterogeneous yet compact structure, crafted in such a way that it is indeed complex (as it could not be otherwise, considering a genre heavily influenced by Opeth, where there is not a hint of frivolity even remotely close), but not overly dispersive.
So yes to digressions, to fusion with other styles of music, even fairly light, but always bearing in mind that you are listening to a melodic Death metal album, with its cavernous and well-executed growls and with the double bass drum always in evidence.
The progression of the tracklist never tires, and the songs seem to evolve each one a step above the previous: always better, always in a different way, where peaks of expressiveness are not evident on a first listen, but the whole body of the album is a searing amalgam that ranges from the brutal "distortions" of Death classicism (as in "Amnesia"), to the rawness of certain arpeggios reminiscent of Katatonia ("The Black Lodge").
Every listener will have something to delight their ears. And always in a varied and different manner.
You can start with the almost Doom intro of "The Shrouded Divine", moving through the robust and never trivial progressivism of "Grand Denial" (perhaps the best piece of the batch. At least that’s how I like to consider it), the melancholy of the already mentioned "The Black Lodge" or "The Art of a Mourning Kind", up to the instrumental virtuosity and experimentation of "Past October Skies (The Black Lodge Revisited)".

This is a band destined for a career, let me say it. It cannot be otherwise. I refuse to think otherwise, because if it were, then in 17 years of listening to Metal I will have understood nothing about how musical genres evolve. A probable hypothesis too, but in this case I want to be optimistic: I need to be. There isn’t a single trace of boredom or overindulgence in this album: every part is in its rightful place and performs its duty excellently. And that’s no small feat. Especially considering that there is persistent talk of the decline of "Swedish Metal".
I honestly don’t know if such talk is unwarranted. I'm not a critic with broad and visionary insights, I'm just a listener who loves this genre and perhaps cannot discern its limits too much due to the excessive passion invested, nevertheless, I believe I can recognize a band of talent. At least grant me that.

And if you are willing to trust me, let yourself be advised this time: buy this album. Whatever the cost, it will be money well spent, I assure you. My word.