A beautifully desperate and dark batch of tunes from The Black Swans is just what any dark and desperate night of the soul cries out for, for it is through such spare but deep-hearted music that we begin to heal. Throughout this ten-song release we sit beside vocalist Jerry DeCicca as he does his best American Bryan Ferry, reminding us that we are not alone but sound very much so himself. You need only hear pieces such as “Hours Never End,” with its somber opening piano figure or “The Raft,” which stirs the soul from desperation to hope and then back, or the self-explanatory “Days Are Long” to know that there is new truth being spoken in this world about the human condition and that this outfit is one of the most qualified (yet softest) speakers. Beautifully, composed, arranged and performed, Who Will Walk in the Darkness with You? makes you understand that the rest is indeed silence and walks that narrow alley between absence and longing and presence and joy. – Jedd Beaudoin