Finland's melodic doom/death metal duo The Bleak Picture prepares to unveil its sophomore full-length, Shades Of Life. The album will see the light of day on 27 June through Ardua Music on CD and digitally, while the first single/video, "Without The I", is already out.

Vocalist Tero Ruohonen (Autumnfall, Temple Of Kliffoth) and multi-instrumentalist Jussi Hänninen (Autumnfall, ex-Fall Of The Leafe) have been working together under the banner of The Bleak Picture since 2021. They released their first EP, Songs Of Longing, that same year, and then in 2024, unveiled their debut full-length, Meaningless. In 2025, Ruohonen and Hänninen are ready to present the second album from The Bleak Picture, and the strides taken since that well-received debut are remarkable. Built upon the foundations of classic, melodic doom/death metal, downcast and wistful, shrouded in gloom and melancholy, although Shades Of Life is also so much more. There's an enthralling magic about this album, an aura that envelops you, a presence that embraces and hides you from the outside world.

From your first step into the world of sorrow and shadows invoked by The Bleak Picture's creative duo, you get drawn inexorably onwards. There is no release until making your way from the weight and wonder of "Plagued By Sorrow" to the final haunted resting place of "City Of Ghosts". Along the way, you will encounter the lush layers of sound and nobility of spirit that characterise the first single, "Without The I", and the whispered vocals and aching sorrow of "Circular Reflection", where a sense of terrible foreboding builds like accumulating storm clouds in a grey and bitter sky. You'll traverse the vast realms of "Silent Exit", an emotional voyage between states of being... between worlds, and between lives. By the time the spirits of the "City Of Ghosts" wave you on your way back to the light, you'll never want to leave.

Immaculately mastered by Javier Fernandez (TodoMal), a myriad of treasures can be found within the richly textured sound of Shades Of Life; the brilliantly effective rhythmic touches within the vivid contrasts of "Code Of Ethics" or the dynamic vocal interplay of the dreaming "Absolution". Link