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Some days, I'm convinced that Finland is the melancholy capital of the world, partly due to bands like this crawling out to remind me how depressing Finland is. Counting Hours are a doom/death act that follows in the dragging footsteps of bands like Anathema, My Dying Bride, and Swallow the Sun, and doing it with the professionalism you'd expect from a band made up of members with experience in acts like Thy Serpent, Rapture, and Shape of Despair. That makes this sound unoriginal and standard, but while The Wishing Tomb is definitely the former, the songwriting is too professional and dense to mistake as anything basic, making this an album you really have to actively engage with as it drags you into its world of sorrow and despair. Vocalist Ilpo Paasela in particular steals the show with his tragic, dramatic clean singing that occasionally pairs off with some expected death growls, both of which lead and support the atmospheric, emotional material the band spins with conviction and style. These Finns prove once again that we are the masters of melancholic music, which will give me some comfort as I lay in bed all day in a depressive haze after this album is over.