HANGING GARDEN

Skeleton Lake LIFEFORCE

Atmosphere and woe from the Helsinki shadows.

The road from doom metal to prog has been walked a few times over the years, and Hanging Garden are doing it with more style than most. There are prominent echoes of the Finnish band’s heavier past throughout Skeleton Lake, but the overriding impression is of a group with extremities planted firmly in goth, shoegaze and windswept, post-Floydian grandeur, too.

Choking swathes of reverb enshroud stirring opener Kuura, as co-vocalist Riikka Hatakka soars across strident riffs and densely layered keys, her growling counterpart Toni Hatakka, a commanding but hostile presence.

Even the most straightforward songs are rich with atmosphere: Nowhere Haven is a thunderous metal tune at heart, but with a chorus that would grace any 80s goth compilation; Winter’s Kiss is a vivid and dynamic squall of elegant melody and postrock melancholy; When The Music Dies builds from shimmering chamber pop to a gloriously pompous crescendo.

The closing title track is particularly stunning, as Hanging Garden return to the snail’s pace crush of their early days, but with spine-tingling synths, spectral melodies and yet more of that magical, becalming reverb.