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Isole's fifth album, Born from Shadows, is the first I've heard from the Swedish Epic/Doom band. Reviews advise allowing time to fully appreciate their music so I've been giving Born from Shadows plenty of soak time over the last couple of weeks. Epic/Doom is undoubtedly 100% accurate in describing Isole's music. Slow tempos and down tuned guitars, heavy with reverb, paired with soaring keyboards gives the band a sound that is not unlike While Heaven Wept. The vocals are mostly clean and unremarkable and there are some occasional Death-like growls in the mix.

Songs like "The Lake," which opens the album, "Condemned" and "Come to Me" are quite good. There is a palpable feeling of emotional tension built up by the mournful vocals and the aggressive riffs. Other songs, like "My Angel" and the title track, struggle to create anything compelling. The melodies are often repeated within the songs and the end results are both monotonous and ponderous. At 7+ minutes, it feels like these songs could easily have been cut in half. That is true even of the shortest song on the album, the 5:29 "When All is Black."

Born from Shadows feels like an album that is half full of good ideas while the other half is filler. There's no question Isole can play good Doom Metal, but the writing, at least on Born form Shadows, is uneven.