Finland's Swallow The Sun play a well worn Nordic furrow of gloomy, doomy atmospheric metal that brings to mind snow drifted forests and months without celestial light to brighten moods or music. Theirs is a potent brand of ear candy which pitches the more melodious side of death and pseudo-doom metal alongside truly mellifluous set pieces carried with aplomb by main man Mikko Kotam?ki?s hauntingly rich vocal timbre. Emerald Forest and the Blackbird will be characterised to most ears by its underlying sense of deep existential sorrow but within this remit it is capable of producing moments of crystalline beauty, most notably the softer sections ?Cathedral Walls?, which feature Anette Olzon of Nightwish?s silken voice doing battle with segments of deliciously orchestrated melodic death fury. This is an album of impressive ambition ? potentially the best in the bands own catalogue ? sensitively handled and patiently realised, ticking all the boxes for fans of expansive Scandinavian metal with bags of heart. With only one of these 10 tracks clocking in at under five minutes (and most well over), this is an immersive, complex listen which is well worth crawling beneath the skin of for some genuinely powerful results.