Finnish dark metal torchbearers Counting Hours announced new album ‘The Wishing Tomb’

Finnish dark metal torchbearers COUNTING HOURS, featuring current and former members of SHAPE OF DESPAIR, RAPTURE, IMPALED NAZARENE, COLOSSEUM and THE CHANT, have just released the first single from their forthcoming sophomore album “The Wishing Tomb”, which is set to be released on February 23rd 2024 via Ardua Music.

Titled “Timeless Ones”, the track is now available at THIS LOCATION.

The band commented:

“Storywise there are glimpses of hope in this one. But only glimpses. It tells of a sort of transition from ‘normal’ existence to a place or phase with no time and a desire to be free in this kind of eternal limbo. Lyrically as an album opener ‘Timeless Ones’ sets a guideline for the whole album.”

“Storywise there are glimpses of hope in this one. But only glimpses. It tells of a sort of transition from ‘normal’ existence to a place or phase with no time and a desire to be free in this kind of eternal limbo. Lyrically as an album opener ‘Timeless Ones’ sets a guideline for the whole album.”

Three years after their critically acclaimed debut “The Will” and almost a quarter of a century after their first endeavour together, RAPTURE‘S doom death seminal landmark “Futile”, guitarists Jarno Salomaa and Tomi Ullgrén (both of them also members of funeral doom legends SHAPE OF DESPAIR) are back with their haunting and otherworldly twin-guitar harmonies on the sophomore release of COUNTING HOURS “The Wishing Tomb”.

On yet another surprising expansion of their signature sound, the Finns continue building a set of colossal and unforgettable melodies using unnerving and gazing grooves as the backbone of their compositions, only to be intertwined with the emotional vocals of singer Ilpo Paasela (of THE CHANT fame), culminating in what will be one of the gloomiest yet, oddly enough, most memorable releases of the year. Nine songs of bleakness and hopeless melodies that will be stuck in your minds for the rest of your hopeless life…the true masters of Nordic melancholy are back!

Tracklist:

1. Unsung, Forlorn
2. Timeless Ones
3. Away I Flow
4. All That Blooms (Needs To Die)
5. Starlit / Lifeless
6. The Wishing Tomb
7. No Closure
8. A Mercy Fall
9. This Well Of Failures

Line-up:
Ilpo Paasela – Vocals
Jarno Salomaa Petrushevski – Electric & Acoustic guitars
Tomi Ullgren – Electric Guitars
Markus Forsström – Bass
Sameli Köykkä – Drums

Keyboards by Jussi Hämäläinen
Backing vocals by Pekka Loponen, Jussi Hämäläinen & Riikka Hatakka