Band:	In Mourning
Album:	The Bleeding Veil
Style:	Melodic death metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	November 2021

01. Sovereign
02. At The Behest Of Night
03. Solitude And Silence
04. Thornwalker
05. Blood In The Furrows
06. Lights On The Mire
07. Beyond Thunder

With The Bleeding Veil, In Mourning continue to refine their progressive melodeath sound and further establish themselves as a model of consistency.

Those eagled-eyed readers among you might recognize that opening blurb from my previous In Mourning review; now, I’m not as keen on self-plagiarism as other reviewers here, but I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off my write-up of The Bleeding Veil. Garden Of Storms was a commendable effort from In Mourning, one that duly grabbed the melodeath staff pick for the 2019 Metal Storm Awards, and one that I’ve returned to more than I perhaps expected after I’d finished reviewing it. The Bleeding Veil offers more on the same on the quality front, whilst offering some minor changes on the musical front.

I spent a couple of minutes in that previous review discussing my opinion concerning the regular comparisons between In Mourning and Opeth; surprisingly, I found myself thinking of Opeth a lot more on this album than most In Mourning records, from the first main riff of opener “Sovereign” through to the verse of “At The Behest Of Night” and the riff after the blast beats in “Thornwalker”. However, they weren’t the only band that came to mind when listening to The Bleeding Veil. There’s quite a few sections here, including towards the end of “Sovereign” and during “Blood In The Furrows”, where the gloomy, melancholic softer moments brought to mind Ghost Brigade, and I also found some moments reminiscent of Amorphis, such as on “Beyond Thunder”.

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already, but “Sovereign” is a solid opener; more mid-tempo than the energetic opener “Black Storm” from Garden Of Storms, most of the song features that Opethian riffing, but the prolonged soft section near the end features a very pleasant guitar solo. I’d say in general, there seems to be more melancholia and subdued softness on The Bleeding Veil than most of the band’s previous offerings, and it works nicely, with Tobias Netzell’s clean singing continuing to improve even further. I also find his lower roars very effective; in contrast, the more high-pitched hardcore-ish screams feel less convincing. I’m sure they’ve featured on previous albums, but I’ve never really paid them much mind either way, whilst a few times here they took me a bit out of the song. It’s probably the weakest element of The Bleeding Veil, but they’re not used frequently, so it’s not a major issue.

In addition to the clean vocals, the lead guitar work feels like it’s taken a step forward; in addition to the solo in “Sovereign”, the main leads during the choruses of “At The Behest Of Night” and “Lights On The Mire” stand out. These leads work nicely against the softer backdrop; there are moments of aggression during the album, such as the blasting in “Thornwalker”, but as a whole this album is clearly softer than Garden Of Storms, and In Mourning pull it off nicely. A bit more energy wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but when you can write melodies as nice as those in the moving closer “Beyond Thunder”, I can see why one might want to prioritize it over aggressive riffing.

Overall, The Bleeding Veil represents an evolution, if not necessarily a revolution, of In Mourning’s sound, and it’s a successful attempt at expanding on the more muted and melancholic parts of their style. At this point, I don’t think it necessarily beats out Garden Of Storms, as there’s a few patches here and there on this record where my interest wanders, but Garden Of Storms is a record that I came to appreciate more over time, so it’s possible the same will happen with The Bleeding Veil too.