When Finland’s doom/death act Swallow the Sun released their debut, The Morning Never Came back in 2003, they appeared poised to be the next great Finnish band and join the likes of Amorphis, Insomnium, Rapture and their ilk in the ranks of legendary Finnish acts. However, with 2005's Ghosts of Loss and 2007's Hope, the band entered more progressive, clean and Katatonia/Opeth influenced waters, and I think it's fair to say the band leveled out after an incredible debut. I’d like to sit here and say that Swallow the Sun are back with more rending doom death, but the fact is, New Moon fails to stand out from the pack of their Finnish counterparts and the band continues into more delicate and artistic pastures.

Not that New Moon is a bad album, it's typically Finnish and well done in its somber elegance and hues and in fact, opening track “These Woods Breathe Evil” starts the album with some surprisingly heavy riffage and pacing with vocalist Mikko Kotamaki screaming and growling fervently and new drummer Kai Hanto (Rotten Sound, Wintersun) giving the track a sturdy back bone.  However, second (“Falling World”) and third track (“Sleepless Swans”) soon show the band's more soothing, though still somber direction as Kotamaki croons and sings (with a typically Finnish sporadic growl here and there) with mournful, almost Paradise Lost pacing and mopey choruses.

Still, Swallow the Sun occasionally prove they can deliver rending doom death with the duo of “…An Heavens Cried Blood” and the female flocked “Lights on the Lake” (with a surprising black metal injection), but even then it's never as moving and emotionally draining as the band's early works; it just seems more tempered and more superficially sad than music that tugs on your heartstrings without even trying. You just get the sense Swallow the Sun have a bit of an identity crisis four albums in - just listen to the title track. . That all being said, the nine minute “Weight of the Dead” is a Finnish doom/death epic despite its sudden ending.

It's ironic that the album is called New Moon as Swallow the Sun seem to be a more sparkly, commercial version of their Finnish brethren, and also have the potential to be as divisive as their vampyric namesake at this point in their career.