WHITE DARKNESS

Nightingale have come a long way since their charming goth rock drenched debut. I can't say the way went up very much. The songs are stitched up hard rock clichés with a neo-prog sauce. Not something that wets my appetite.

It's not bad though. Predictable as it is, The Fields of Life has a number of good grooves and feature the excellent vocals from Swanö who's not hiding his affection for Ronnie James Dio here. If you like the more commercial Rainbow songs like Jealous Lover or Dio's solo albums you'll sure enjoy this. If you liked Swanö's contributions on Lucassen's Star One project you might like to pick this up as well.

Generally the album is very uneven. Most songs have strong verses but turn into cheese due to ill-advised key-changes in the choruses or by the over-abundant application of sweet syrup. Next to the opening track, also Wounded Soul is very good, it's a touching medium-tempo ballad with a good mix of acoustic strumming and distorted guitars. Classic rock track.

Also Hideaway is not without merit but don't approach if you're allergic to AOR choruses. It's unfortunate Swanö takes to Asia approach to prog so much. Otherwise this could have been a really fun album.

White Darkness is the 6th full-length studio album by Swedish melodic/ progressive rock/ metal act Nightingale. The album was released in June 2007 by Black Mark Productions.

The sound on White Darkness continues the more hard rock tinged sound of the predecessor Invisible (2004). The basis in the music is still melodic rock/ metal with a semi-progressive edge but add to that neo-progressive elements ( I´m thinking Marillion here), hard rock riffing and organ playing. Dan Swanö´s vocal delivery and warm voice is as usual one of the main attractions in Nightingale´s music. I´ve followed Dan´s career since the early nineties and the development in his clean vocal skills from the first clean vocal attempts on the early Edge of Sanity albums to his more and more mature and diverse vocal delivery on subsequent Nightingale ( and other projects) albums, and it´s safe to say that he has grown with the task. Today he stands as a great clean vocalist with a personal voice and a skillful delivery. I like the added hard rock vocal dimension he has built into his vocal arsenal during the last couple of Nightingale albums.

The songs on the album are all quality compositions and while the production and some of the choruses are a bit too polished and nice for my personal taste, it´s hard not to acknowledge the songwriting skill involved here. The music is damn catchy and instantly recognisable as the sound of Nightingale. The band have created their own little niche and their music is actually quite unique sounding. A 3.5 star rating is warranted.