Label : Cyclone Empire Records
Review by Luisa Mercier
Black Sun Aeon is the solo project of Tuomas Saukkonen, who is already involved in many other bands (Before The Dawn, Dawn of Solace, RoutaSielu). He used to keep this project to explore other sides of his music mixing gothic, death, doom never losing sight of melody. While the previous work “Routa” was mainly focused on instrumental music, “Blacklight Deliverance” has two guests singers that alternate in the seven tracks: Mikko Heikkilä and Janica Lönn (female singer from Lunar Path). The opener “Brothers” has powerful yet melodic riffing as only Finnish can craft, while Tuomas growls and Janica creates magical landscapes with her vocalising. Towards the end an acoustic interlude makes everything softer and sweeter. There is a real winter mood throughout the song that goes on with the following “Solitude”.
This track is typical gothic-doom: female vocals and tuned down guitars counterbalanced by clean male vocals and growls courtesy of Tuomas and Mikko. One of the highlights of the album is “Sheol”. The trademark is clearly death metal with fast paced moments that never lose catchiness. Towards half of the song Janica and Tuomas duet while the song keeps being heavy and aggressive, really aggressive. Impressive how Finnish can always write song that are pleasant to the ears, but violent at the same time. “Oblivion” is another gothic sounding track where Janica has a leading role with Mikko singing in the chorus. It would be make a nice single.
In “Horizon” some keyboards even appear, but it is a matter of a few seconds. The remaining five minutes are filled with epic riffs while vocal lines are provided by Mikko and Tuomas. Another heavy track is served.The sound of an old vinyl, a melancholic acoustic guitar, before storm takes over. This is “Wasteland” that becomes more melodic at about half of the track, but soon death metal is again the main character of the song.“Nightfall” shows the softer side of Black Sun Aeons, but it is a gloomy mood, not romantic. Nice power ballad with a piano outro that also is the outro of the whole record.
Rating – 80/100
Tracklist
- Brothers
- Solitude
- Sheol
- Oblivion
- Horizon
- Wasteland
- Nightfall
Line Up
- Tuomas Saukkonen – Guitar, drums, bass, keyboards, dark vocals.
- Mikko Heikkilä – Male clean vocals (Guest Vocals)
- Janica Lönn – Female vocals (Guest Vocals)
- Mynni Luukkainen – Additional harsh vocals (Guest Vocals)