In Mourning: ‘The Immortal’ Positions the Band as a Defining Force in Progressive Death Metal

The sound that announces the return of In Mourning is not a roar, but a lament. It is carried on the call of a migratory bird, a creature of profound endurance and melancholic grace. “Listen to the song of the cranes,” vocalist Tobias Netzell intones over a spare, haunting melody. “Watch them as they bow their heads. I was there… And walked without you for a hundred days.” This track, ‘Song of the Cranes,’ is the second single from the band’s forthcoming album, and its central image—the crane, a symbol of longevity and arduous journeys—serves as a potent metaphor for the Swedish quartet’s own quarter-century flight through the often-turbulent skies of heavy metal.

On August 29, 2025, In Mourning will release its seventh studio album, ‘The Immortal,’ via the labels Dalapop and Supreme Chaos Records. It is a title freighted with significance for a band that has persevered for 25 years, weathering lineup changes and the long shadow of its influences to arrive at this defining moment. The album is described not merely as a collection of songs, but as an emotionally profound statement, a “meditative exploration of time, resilience, and the quiet strength that comes from embracing the impermanence of existence.”

The choice of the album’s first two singles appears to be a deliberate artistic calculation, a thematic diptych introducing the record’s core philosophical tension. The first single, ‘The Sojourner,’ speaks to the transient, often painful, nature of life. A sojourner is, by definition, a temporary resident, one who is just passing through. The band describes the song as a reflection on “time, regret, and the weight of what is left unsaid,” with lyrics that evoke a “spiral that never ends,” capturing a sense of cyclical struggle and impermanence.

In stark contrast, ‘Song of the Cranes’ embodies the long, resilient, and mournful journey that constitutes a lifetime. The crane’s migration is a testament to persistence against the odds, and the song’s lyrics of a “pounding, torn and blackened heart” and a “wound that never seems to heal” speak to an enduring sorrow carried across that long passage. Together, they present the album’s central conflict: the fleeting, painful moments of our sojourn on Earth versus the immortal, migratory journey of the soul through time.

Forging a Swedish Sound: The 25-Year Sojourn

In Mourning’s journey began in the forests of Vansbro, Sweden, in 2000. Over the course of five demos, the band’s sound evolved from its gothic metal origins into a more progressive and melancholic style, culminating in their 2008 full-length debut, ‘Shrouded Divine.’ The album was hailed by critics as a masterpiece, a remarkably mature and powerful first effort that was simultaneously raw, aggressive, and melodic. It showcased stunning, intricate guitar work and a penchant for complex compositions that immediately set the band apart. However, it also saddled them with a comparison that would follow them for the next decade and a half: Opeth.

This “anxiety of influence” became a recurring motif in the band’s critical reception. Subsequent albums like 2010’s ‘Monolith’ and 2012’s ‘The Weight of Oceans’ were lauded for their ambition and complexity, but were often viewed through an Opeth-centric lens, praised for channeling a similar spirit but rarely judged entirely on their own terms. By the time of 2016’s ‘Afterglow,’ some critics openly questioned whether the band could ever truly step out from behind that long shadow, even as they acknowledged the tightness of the songwriting and performances.

This long struggle for a unique identity has been mirrored by an internal one. The band’s history is a real-world example of the Ship of Theseus paradox: if every plank of a ship is replaced over time, is it still the same ship? With numerous lineup changes over the years, vocalist and guitarist Tobias Netzell remains the sole founding member. The band has seen a complete overhaul of its rhythm section and, for ‘The Immortal,’ welcomes the formidable talents of drummer Cornelius Althammer, known for his work with the funereal doom band Ahab. Yet, the entity known as In Mourning persists, its name and musical essence carried forward even as its constituent parts have changed.

This internal, philosophical question of identity has converged with a pivotal moment in their genre. With Opeth’s decisive turn toward progressive rock, a void has been created at the pinnacle of progressive death metal. The throne, as it were, is vacant. This has transformed In Mourning from perpetual “heirs” into legitimate contenders. Their recent work, particularly on 2021’s ‘The Bleeding Veil,’ saw the band lean more heavily into some of those Opethian structures, suggesting not an imitation, but a readiness to finally engage with, and perhaps transcend, that legacy. ‘The Immortal’ is thus not just another album; it is their coronation moment, a bid to claim the crown they have long been positioned to inherit.

‘The Immortal’: A Meditative Exploration of Time and Grief

The band’s ambitious vision for ‘The Immortal’ is underscored by their choice of production team. The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered at the world-renowned Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, a name synonymous with the highest echelon of modern metal. The decision to work with mixer Alexander Backlund (whose credits include genre titans Dark Tranquillity and Dödsrit) and mastering engineer Tony Lindgren (Opeth, Sepultura, Wardruna) signals a profound investment in sonic excellence and a clear statement of artistic intent.

This pursuit of a definitive sound is echoed in the band’s own descriptions of the album. Netzell has stated that his vision was to create something “massive and huge,” describing the album as “darker than anything we have done before, like a cold wind blowing through the whole record with a slight touch of black metal.” This suggests a conscious departure, an evolution toward a bleaker, more atmospheric palette. New drummer Cornelius Althammer reinforces this, calling the album a “more focused and concentrated version of In Mourning” and a “renewal without losing any features that have been making In Mourning’s compositions so great for so many years.” Together, these statements paint a picture of a band not just continuing, but deliberately refining and intensifying its core identity.

The album’s lyrical core represents a significant emotional shift. In a recent interview, guitarist Björn Pettersson described the creation of ‘The Bleeding Veil’ as a process of tapping into “pretty dark places.” In contrast, he sees ‘The Immortal’ as a “process of moving on,” one that explores themes of “acceptance… life and death and cycles of life and death in nature and in a year.” This marks a clear thematic trajectory, moving from the depths of sorrow to a more philosophical contemplation of its place in the natural order.

In this, the album becomes deeply self-referential. The conceptual framework of persistence through change, of grappling with a legacy while moving forward, is a direct metaphor for the band’s own 25-year history. The art and the artist have become one. The “moving on” described by Pettersson is not just a lyrical conceit but a statement on the band’s own creative and emotional state. To understand ‘The Immortal,’ one must understand the immortal journey of the band itself—a journey of constant renewal, of grappling with its own past to forge a lasting identity.

The Visual Art ‘The Immortal’ by Metastazis

To translate the album’s profound philosophical themes into a visual medium, In Mourning enlisted an artist whose own work is steeped in provocation and intellectual rigor: French designer Valnoir Mortasonge of the Paris-based Metastazis studio. The choice is a statement in itself. Valnoir is an iconoclast in the world of music design, known for his aggressive artistic manifesto—”Metastazis does not obey its clients”—and for using unconventional, often shocking, materials, including posters for the band Watain silk-screened with human blood.

Valnoir’s work is a deliberate rejection of compromise, a quality that has made him a sought-after collaborator for bands like Behemoth, Alcest, and Amorphis, who seek to pair their music with equally uncompromising visuals. His philosophy is one of constructive conflict; he uses his art to “generate conflicts, awkwardness, doubts, and anger,” believing that “nothing strong or entertaining has ever been created without frictions.” This approach makes him a perfect visual counterpart for an album like ‘The Immortal,’ which grapples with the uncomfortable truths of mortality and grief.

The resulting artwork is described as a “visual gateway into the album’s philosophical depths and melancholic majesty,” one that embodies the core concepts of “seasonal transformation and eternal cycles.” For a band aiming to create a sound that is dark, massive, and touched by black metal, partnering with an artist who has built a career on subverting expectations and exploring the macabre is not just a choice, but a mission statement. It signals that every aspect of ‘The Immortal,’ from its sound engineering to its visual presentation, has been curated to create a single, cohesive, and profoundly challenging work of art.

First Tastes of Eternity: Deconstructing the Singles

The album’s first single, ‘The Sojourner,’ serves as a powerful microcosm of the band’s dynamic and multifaceted approach. Reviews have described it as a “bare-knuckled slugger” that masterfully shifts between floor-vibrating aggression and moments of mysterious, shimmering beauty.

The track is a showcase for Netzell’s vocal versatility, moving seamlessly from relentlessly raw, impassioned raging to deep, guttural roars and, in the chorus, clean singing that “thrillingly soars high.” This is layered over intricate guitar permutations and epic soloing, creating a song that feels both spectacular and deeply reflective. The lyrics, with their imagery of a “sojourning sun” that “will return and melt the ice” and a “spiral that never ends,” poetically capture the album’s themes of cyclical time, regret, and the profound weight of unspoken words.

Its counterpart, ‘Song of the Cranes,’ offers a different, more sustained kind of power. Where ‘The Sojourner’ is volatile, ‘Song of the Cranes’ is a haunting, atmospheric elegy that builds its mood with patient, melancholic grace. The track connects directly to the album’s core theme of processing grief, with poignant lyrics that speak of a “pounding, torn and blackened heart” and a “wound that never seems to heal,” giving voice to a sorrow that feels both personal and timeless.

In their musical and lyrical differences, these two songs perfectly prepare the listener for the journey of ‘The Immortal.’ They promise an album that possesses both the aggressive, complex dynamism of a band at the peak of its technical powers and the deep, atmospheric sorrow of artists who have spent 25 years contemplating the nuances of the human condition.

Conclusion

The release of ‘The Immortal’ does not happen in a vacuum. It arrives at a fascinating juncture for Swedish melodic death metal, a moment that feels like a referendum on the genre’s very soul. The landscape of progressive and melodic death metal in 2025 is one of rich experimentation and genre-fusion, where the lines between atmospheric metal, progressive composition, and death metal brutality are increasingly blurred.

This context is made explicit by another major 2025 release: ‘March of the Unheard’ by The Halo Effect, a supergroup composed of iconic former members of In Flames, one of the original Gothenburg pioneers. Their album has been widely described as a direct “homage to the classic Gothenburg sound,” a deliberate and expertly crafted look backward to the genre’s foundational aesthetics.

In Mourning’s ‘The Immortal’ provides the perfect counter-narrative. At the very moment the genre’s pioneers are looking back with nostalgia, its heirs are pushing resolutely forward, promising a sound that is darker, more atmospheric, and touched by the cold winds of black metal. This juxtaposition creates a compelling cultural moment, a debate played out in riffs and blast beats over whether the future of this uniquely Swedish art form lies in celebrating its past or in bravely charting its future.

With ‘The Immortal,’ In Mourning appears to have rendered such debates moot. After a quarter-century of evolution, of grappling with influence and identity, the band has transcended the need for comparison. The journey of this musical Ship of Theseus has led not to a loss of self, but to its ultimate realization. They are no longer simply the heirs to a sound; they have become the definitive modern purveyors of introspective, philosophical, and progressive death metal. The album’s title, once seen as a weighty choice, now feels like a quiet statement of fact—not about the band members themselves, but about the enduring, resilient, and now truly immortal spirit of their art.