Swallow the Sun is a Finnish death-doom band that emphasizes melody and atmosphere and different vocal approaches. The sextet counts with 3 original members: Juha Raivio (guitar),Mikko Kotamäki (vocals) and Matti Honkonen (bass). The Morning Never Came is the debut studio album released in 2003 and followed by five other albums. Released in 2015, Songs From The North I, II & III is a massive triple album and it was very well received by critics and fans alike. No surprise that it took 4 years to return. The question is, how to follow a 2.5-hour diverse record?
To answer this question, Swallow the Sun is releasing When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light, the seventh studio album. Compared to the previous record, this one is a straightforward 8 tracks in 53 minutes affair. I must say that based on the fist single and track four "Upon the Water" my expectations were very high. This is a fantastic song mixing very slow doom verses and chorus with a heavy almost black metal-ish bridge. The transition of vocal styles is seamlessly and impressive. Despite being dark and mid-tempo, the song has enough raw energy mainly driven by the vocals. The second single "Firelights" and third song on the album, is a great slower doom song. The clean vocals dominate but there's a post-chorus of explosion into the growling vocals that gives the song so much power. There are other great moments like the title track and album opener: An epic seven minutes track combining symphonic arrangements, acoustic guitars and a black metal chorus. "The Crimson Crown" follows and it's an even longer track with eight minutes of goth melancholy. The last two tracks "Here on the Black Earth" and "Never Left" are melancholic beautiful and very dark at the same time.
The difficulty for me was that not all songs in the album lived up to my expectations as some stay on the goth influenced sound for too long. Nonetheless, When a Shadow is Forced Into the Light is a grower. For the goth/post-rock songs and passages, you need time and focus to fully appreciate the emotions pouring from them. Mikko Kotamaki (vocals) performance is quite impressive on how he goes from beautiful clean singing into black metal screens, deep funeral doom growls with perfection. Musicianship and production are flawless. All in all, a few days may not be enough to fully appreciate this beautiful dark emotional record. Therefore, I won't be surprise if it gains a few more points by the end of the year.
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