In Mourning is back with Garden of Storms, their 5th album full of the progressive melodic death metal they are known for.
Metal music from Sweden has gotten to the point where just originating from that country means a quality release and bands like In Mourning is why that statement rings true. Now on their fifth album, In Mourning released their first one, Shrouded Divine, in 2008, followed two years later by Monolith. Somewhat surprisingly, the band has had a relatively stable lineup over their greater than 10yr existence, but has managed to go through a couple of drummers prior to Joakim Strandber Nilsson starting in 2018. At one point, Garden of Storms was #8 on Metal Storm’s top 20 albums of 2019 and was a #53 on the Heatseekers top 200 soon after release showing the critical and fan acceptance of the work.
Given that we are talking about progressive, melodic death metal, it should come as no surprised that the seven song album clocks in around 50 minutes in length, so there is definitely a lot to talk about here. “Black Storm” opens up innocently enough with some clean guitar chords, but the calm is short-lived as there are short bursts of the full band coming in with a heavy riff and pounding drums, setting the tone for the song. Tobias Netzell’s deep scream layered into the background is a good touch to the sound, which comes through in a well-mixed blast of noise. The melodic shines through in the main riff of the song as well in the more atmospheric-like moments that also feature Netzell showing some clean vocals to complement the growled death vocals. Being my first introduction to the band, I can’t help but be impressed with the drum work from Joakim Strandberg Nilsson who keeps a simple, slower pounding rhythm when needed but can explode into faster, approaching blast beat rhythms to drive the song along.
