Bearing all the trademarks of something I would ordinarily use as a drink coaster, "Shadows of the Sun" amazingly emerges as one of the more moving works I've heard in recent months. It's amazing because Yanni is probably more metal than the incredibly mellow and laidback tunes on this disc. There's barely any electric guitar or percussion on the nine tracks here and the pace is almost always somewhere south of Catacombs or Rigor Sardonicous. But each tune has its own identity and is so cleverly put together that boredom never enters the equation.

Ulver have always been musical chameleons since Day One. "Shadows of the Sun" is a portal into the most relaxed and languid depths of their mind. But to call this music pop or New Age would be completely wrong. The songs are just too somber for that and can often be considered eerie with a faint touch of the sinister to them. These are funeral ballads for a mournful congregation. And their structure is often unorthodox, with no standard verse-chorus-verse pattern. It sounds as if band leader Garm and his cohorts all chugged a gallon of Robitussin and decided to play at the bottom of a swimming pool.

The wonderfully relaxing and meditative "Eos" kicks things off with long drones of strings and minimal piano tones. The warm voice of Garm is the laidback crooning of the ultimate lounge singer, yet the lyrics deal with death and loss in a rather creepy way. "All the Love" follows through logically from "Eos" before "Like Music" picks things up slightly with a jazzy feel and some percussion. Occasionally a sax or the squeal of feedback will add ambient texture to the tunes. The cover of Black Sabbath's somnolent classic "Solitude" is inspired, as the feel of the original seems to be what Ulver is trying to create on the whole disc. The album ends much as it began with the drifting, glacial "What Happened?", a kind of darker counterpoint to "Eos".

The Good Doctor never thought he'd be singing the praises of something like this, but "Shadows on the Sun" is a soothing journey into a still, quiet place.