Dan Swanö has given us a lot of music through the years. One of his main bands is Nightingale and, unlike most of his other projects, here we we’re not talking about metal, but about melodic rock. The group has put behind the gothic rock from its early records a long time ago, and “White Darkness” is the logical continuation to the impressive “Invisible” from 2004 and is the next issue in a row that Dan and his brother Dag (a.k.a. Tom Nouga) can proudly offer to their followers. The ten compositions are presented in the well-known AOR style - with nice solos, strong lyrics and an often dominating, but not intrusive synthesizer. Dan’s clean singing with the melodic lines in the songs is a real joy for the ear of any pretentious soft rock admirer. The songs are in perfectly balanced correlation of explosive choruses and melancholic verses, acoustic and powerful passages, tender tunes and loud double-vocal inclusions, enriched with the instrumental qualities of the music. This makes the CD suitable for fans of yet forgotten bands like Triumph, Thunder or Bonfire. The pure calmness that comes from tunes like “One Way Ticket” or the title track “White Darkness” unnoticeably flows into the emotional power of the beautiful “Reasons” and the close to Rainbow “Belief”. And as it is usual for Nightingale, the much you listen to them, the much you like them. In short, “White Darkness” is among these pure and inspiring albums that you can always play when you just hang around at home, travel by your car or just wonder which CD you should reach out to. Melodic, leisure, explosive and expressive, it is loaded with good music for good mood.