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It’s hard to deny that there is a whiff of label opportunism here; by signing Sweden’s Then Comes Silence, Nuclear Blast were clearly trying to secure their very own Grave Pleasures. Fortunately, Blood offers no cheap facsimile of the Finns’ sound and has its own distinct personality. These are well-crafted songs, full of dark insights and grim exhilaration, and taken in its entirety it’s a diverse and adventurous record that only occasionally relies on a well-worn formula. Listeners of a certain age will pick out nods to seminal goths like Bauhaus and The Bolshoi, but with songs like Choose Your Poison, which could have fitted neatly onto Mark Lanegan’s latest solo album, and The Dead Cry For No One (mascarastainedagit-funk, anyone?), Then Comes Silence are manifestly committed to broadening their palette. If groovy gloom is your thing, this is up there with the best of them.

Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for over 14 years and is extremely fond of heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee and snooker. He also contributes to The Guardian, Classic Rock, Bravewords and Blabbermouth and has previously written for Kerrang! magazine in the mid-2000s.