In my short time here at metalreviews, I’ve received a fair share of promo material from young bands trying to make a name for themselves. Son of Mourning are another young band looking to get their foot in the door of an ever-changing metal scene. They play a quite energetic version of the grey area where European melodic death metal meets American metalcore. Fans of Unearth, Darkest Hour, and the extremely influential At The Gates should know what to expect. Stagnant you may say? Unoriginal? To be sure, the past few years have seen their fair share of bands similar to Son of Mourning, but after listening to this meaty demo for the past few weeks, you can’t help but acknowledge the fact that they have a lot of talent and know what they are doing.

After absorbing these songs over the past two weeks, a few things have become clear to me regarding In The Tameness of a Wolf. First off, every musician on this CD sounds like they know their way around their respective instruments quite well and managed to get a really good sound out of each of them for a debut. In fact, this mix could be good enough for a major label debut as it is. The guitars are loud and crisp, the bass and drums are punchy and clearly heard, and vocalist Greg Rossettini ( who reminds me a lot of Himsa’s John Pettibone) has a clear mid-range scream that he uses throughout the album. Aside from the obligatory keyboard intro track, every song is packed with enough melody and riffage to make you bang your head, if only for a minute or two. The Synthetic Revolution is a quite suitable intro track. Building up with a speedy guitar lick, which kicks into a series of riffs based on a strong motif repeated by guitarists Mike Lejeune and Alan Eschar. In fact, every single song on this album has guitar-driven melodies that range from optimistic and catchy (What Cuts Deepest), to dark and powerful (Succession). The drumming is standard metal fare: double bass here, half time breakdown there, and even a few blast beats to keep things speedy. Speaking of breakdowns; even those are riff driven, rather than resorting to a simple open-string chugging pattern, which is a big plus in my book. Watashi No Tetsu is one of the better songs on the album, beginning with a riff that grabs you immediately, a vocal pattern that sticks with you, and great melodic leads in the chorus that make the hooks of the song even sharper. The album’s closer, Distilled, is probably the weakest song on the album. It features a melodic vocal performance that is just straight up weak and very out of place, especially when it is compared to the forceful scream that has been so dominate in the CD’s previous songs.

As I stated before, Son of Mourning are in no way breaking new ground with In The Tameness of a Wolf. However, for such a young band, they show tons of promise. Both guitarists definitely know their shit when it comes to writing hooky riffs and solos that are impressive in both composition and technical difficulty. The songs are not difficult to get into, though the Synthetic Revolution, What Cuts Deepest and Watashi No Tetsu just seem to rise above the rest. The band could definitely compete with other bands that play in a similar style to this. Unfortunately, there are sooo many young bands today that play in a similar style to this, standing out will be quite a difficult task. These guys obviously have the talent and drive to push themselves as far as their talents will take them, if they could only inject some sort of unique quality to their music in order to stand out, they could have a bright future in the metal world.