New album for In Mourning.
Four years after their previous release, the band comprising Tobias Netzell (guitar/vocals, Antarktis, ex-October Tide), Björn Pettersson (guitar/vocals, Antarktis), Tim Nedergård (guitar) and recently Cornelius Althammer (drums, Ahab) unveil The Immortal, their seventh album, via Dalapop and Supreme Chaos Records.
The album kicks off with its eponymous title track The Immortal, a luminous introduction lasting just over a minute that leads into Silver Crescent’s heavy, jerky riffs, a track where heady melodies and roars naturally respond to each other. The band easily combines fury and soaring passages, but doesn’t hesitate to integrate clean vocals to dress up slower passages, before speeding off again to increase the intensity tenfold, or handing over the reins to Song of the Cranes, which offers a catchy approach. The same mix of vocals punctuates the ferocious but controlled rhythmic strokes topped by piercing leads, with a few accelerations before the chorus, followed by a soaring break and the finale that leads into As Long as the Twilight Stays and its ethereal introduction. The track develops a soothing groove before letting the double pedal and the screams rage in this impressive flow strewn with melancholy touches, as during the long final solo that finally gives way to The Sojourner and its markedly explosive Prog influences. Duality is, of course, omnipresent on this composition, which shifts from intoxicating calm to much more agitated parts while retaining its coldness, and then it’s with Moonless Sky, the shortest song, that the band grants us a moment’s respite in misty dissonance. Staghorn brings back the aggression with a few darker, more ominous touches, making the rhythm threatening except during the salvific clear vocal parts, which are nonetheless less suffocating, then North Star comes in to hypnotize us with its soaring harmonics before letting its contrast fascinate us. It’s easy to get caught up between the ranting and the minimalist leads, but the track eventually veers off into the longest and final composition, The Hounding, which returns to that half-majestic, half-soothing coldness before charging back in with its aggressive roots and high tempo, punctuated by waves of softer, Prog-infused sound that bring the album to a fitting close.
Although In Mourning has considerably evolved, The Immortal‘s stability and sonic power are evident. Whether it’s furious Progressive Death Metal or Melodic Death’s waves of melancholy, the band exactly know what they’re doing.
90/100