Sweden based Melodic/Death Metal band, IN MY EMBRACE, was formed in the year 2004 by Johan Sjöblom and Bosse Öhman as a side project to Johan's other band, DII MINORES. The music that the band played at the time of the band's inception was Old School Black Metal with influences of Viking/Death Metal. They wrote a bunch of songs that were not recorded professionally and the year 2006 saw them put the project on hiatus. Johan Sjöblom meanwhile joined PLANET RAIN but left the band in 2009, and the year 2010, he started writing new material with a view to resurrect IN MY EMBRACE. Soon enough, the band released their first EP titled, "Dead to Dust Descend", in the year 2014 that had 7 tracks written over a period of 10 years. This galvanized the band to release a single in the year 2015 called "Thy Abhorrence". Johan Sjöblom and Bosse Öhman then decided to bring in more musicians to the fold and make it a real band with an idea to write new material and perform live. Most of the musicians that make up the band have played with each other in some form or the other, which led to their natural selection to play in the band.

The album starts off with "The Coming Storm", a tight instrumental number that has a wailing guitar lead over a simple chord progression and is less than a minute in runtime. The second song "Black Waters Deep" is an extension of the first gloomy atmospheric track and starts off with a heavy riff and the growling lead vocals jump into the track right from the start. The song is a bleak affair with pessimistic lyrics and the band manages to paint a grim picture of life. Tracks like "Of Ache and Sorrow" and "The Road of Hanging On" have the same despondent imagery and cynical lyrics that the band likes to write about. "Next Chapter" has a piano in the beginning before distorted guitars and guttural lead vocals take the song forward. The piano melody plays intermittently throughout the song and provides a relief from the viciousness of the song. "Autumn Storm Despair" is the last track of the album and is a fitting end and partner to the way the album begins and is a melancholic guitar melody that offers a soothing feeling after a brutal album. The entirely instrumental track has thunder and lightning in the distance to give the listener a feeling of calm before the storm.

The album owes its thanks to Jonas Lindström, who has mixed and mastered an incredibly melancholic album. The songs take on a Melodic/Black Metal avatar and will appeal to Death/Doom Metal fans. The band shows a wide array of song writing abilities with tender acoustic tracks that prop up the album at both ends. Frenzied tracks that are interbred with deliberate slow songs make this an interesting album that is worth a listen. The only drawback, if any, is that the tracks are structured very similarly and some riffs do tend to get monotonous. This does, however, takes nothing away from the talented musicians that form the band even though Bosse Öhman's advanced tinnitus keeps him away from rehearsals and performances. The album is about 35 minutes in runtime and just about enough to leave the listener satiated and in a good mood!<