What we have here is a more-than-one-half-of-an-hour song under the title Plague Of Butterflies from the Finnish band SWALLOW THE SUN, that firstly was planned as a project that would combine music and ballet performance (in the end it never happened). It can be considered as an EP release after their three full-length albums, the last one being Hope in 2007, playing a 'melodic' Doom style with some Death Metal vocals.
Plague Of Butterflies is divided in three parts, with the first one, Losing The Sunsets having many references to OPETH with a musical extension to EDGE OF SANITY's Crimson albums. The atmosphere spins around dark, melancholic places. It starts nice but in the second self-titled part the band draws close to parodies like DIMMU BORGIR with useless piano parts and soulless Black Metal 'wanna be' vocals. Hopefully during the third part things are getting better with clear parts from KATATONIA and MY DYING BRIDE but the band doesn't reach a satisfying level 'cause of the absence of really serious ideas and of the deficiency of personal touch inside their style. I recognize that the writing of a 30-minute-plus song is not an easy task but SWALLOW THE SUN cannot bypass the level that would be vital for having the whole concept meaning. Overall, the whole song is not totally un-satisfactory; they create (in some points) a veil of deep darkness while some melodic moments are worth mentioning, but cannot invert the entire boring disposal.
Except of Plague Of Butterflies, the disc includes all songs from the 2003 debut demo Out Of This Gloomy Light, that was limited to 3(!!!) copies and surely is something that will gain the attention of their fans. Let's say that here the music is much better, although the beginning brings indifferently emotions 'cause Through Her Silvery Body is mediocre. Everything will change with the full TIAMAT-ish Out Of This Gloomy Light that is nice enough (although it's a little in 'copy/paste' mode ) and mostly with Swallow. In this one and the last one, Under The Waves, you will hear (except the many influences from MY DYING BRIDE) some good guitar things combined with satisfying Doom Metal music. If there is something that you have to keep from this album is the last three songs.