Band:	Black Sun Aeon
Album:	Blacklight Deliverance
Style:	Melodic death metal, Doom metal
Release date:	October 26, 2011
A review by:	Troy Killjoy

01. Brothers
02. Solitude
03. Sheol
04. Oblivion
05. Horizon
06. Wasteland
07. Nightfall

Multi-instrumentalist Tuomas Saukkonen has made quite a name for himself in the melodic metal scene, his name synonymous with Before The Dawn, Dawn Of Solace, and lastly, Black Sun Aeon. If you're keeping count, that's two albums released this year and five albums in the last three. Efficient, sure - but unfortunately not proficient.

Blacklight Deliverance is the runt of the litter, to put it simply. When compared to the more melodic and evocative Darkness Walks Beside Me or the more adventurous Routa, it appears diminutive and malnourished. Saukkonen hasn't released a complete dud, mind you; the archetypal melodic death doom formula is still present and Mikko Heikkilä's clean vocals are still utilized appropriately for dramatic effect. Those two aspects alone should please any fan of less extreme doom bands, such as Draconian and Swallow The Sun.

Comparisons notwithstanding, this album still fails to capture or entice. Saukkonen's decision to incorporate clean female vocals so obnoxiously detracts from the already limited energy produced by the stagnant sound, treading a rather monotonous path. Fortunately Blacklight Deliverance improves in one area that Routa fell short: objective. With a 40-minute run time the listener is able to better digest the contents, their purpose clear from the very start. Saukkonen wants to leave his audience morose, but he doesn't want anyone slitting their wrists over it.

The songs blend together without hesitation making it difficult to scrutinize the individual aspects that make this album seem to stretch on well past its run time, yet it's made apparent before the halfway point that you've been hearing the same song only with a different title... over... and over... It drives the message home. The atmosphere drags you down into a feeling of slight despair.

And that's where you're left when the album concludes: depressed, but not really.