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Rating: "One night it happened, the morning never came..."
From Finland emerges in 2003 this band Swallow The Sun, yet another musical epigone of the Doom/Death genre born from My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, and Anathema more than ten years ago by now. However, the definition "yet another" is not suitable. Indeed, because here we are faced with a group that knows what it's doing, and very well at that. The project was born in 2000 and sees the light with this first album "The Morning Never Came". The title is perfectly indicative, the record is a nighttime monolith as if the morning never returned.
The first track "Through Her Silvery Body" starts with an arpeggio and a series of very melancholic and sad riffs. However, the heaviness is not missing, rendering the atmosphere very solemn, almost a prelude to the end. The entrance of the ungracious growl is disarming and the track alternates between aggressive and melancholic, alluring parts. Features that return in the subsequent "Deadly Nightshade", endowed with a wonderful central solo and "Out Of This Gloomy Light," an authentic gem where the singer follows the keyboard lines with an unexpectedly high level of expressiveness despite having a very raw and brutal voice. The fourth track "Swallow" is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful things composed lately in this field. The wonderful and very sad initial riff contrasts admirably with the decidedly violent and "fast" middle section. "Silence Of The Womb" is pure Doom. Slow, majestic, and distressing, the track has everything to be a masterpiece: a monolithic first part, a delicate piano interlude followed by a series of very melancholic riffs and finally a reprise of the initial part. Finally noteworthy is the unsettling finale where you can hear children crying in the background along with other ominous sounds. All of this finds explanation in the very apocalyptic lyrics. I recommend giving them a look. "Hold This Woe" is characterized by the continuous alternation of extremely fast parts at the edge of black, with others typically Doom and rich with keyboards. It is followed by "Under The Waves", a beautiful track but slightly understated compared to the others. I save the last words for the incredible "The Morning Never Came", the last track of the album. The atmosphere in this song is literally apocalyptic. Everything in this track, from the arpeggiated and clean sung verses to the devastating chorus (sung in a truly high-level growl) made of extremely solemn Doom riffs accompanied by sad keyboard sounds, exudes despair and infinite sadness. Truly dramatic is the concluding part of the track before the final chorus where it really seems as if Judgment Day has come and the final words of the lyrics become as heavy as stones.
With this album, Swallow The Sun positions themselves, in my personal opinion, as the most credible exponents of the Doom/Death current after the masters My Dying Bride. My advice is to listen to this album with your heart because only then will you be able to grasp the black magic within. And who knows then, the morning might never truly come again.
"The skies blow the last light away
Summer exists only in the writings of the wise
We prepare for our final run
When the winter swallows the sun"
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Through Her Silvery Body (08:40)
...and when she lies silent,
her beauty lights the room,
but now no other man,
will taste her loins of doom...
02 Deadly Nightshade (05:48)
The strength of her pulse is breaking her chest
She's getting wet from this feverish writhe
The midnight's cruel for a lonely girl
When the unknown slowly undresses her breasts
The voice - and her eyes wide shut
Her fever burns a mark on her bed
The path that she runs among these silent trees
Leads her body for me to claim
The veil of fog covers her velvet skin
As she kneels naked under the moon
The whispers from her lips and her screams
Invite me to her ecstatic flame, over and over again
Her bed is covered in dirt and leaves
And she's burning down on her knees
Midnight's cruel for a lonely girl
And she's getting wet from this feverish writhe
03 Out of This Gloomy Light (05:37)
out of this gloomy night
...now i'm a grey old ghost,
weeping in the winter trees...
05 Silence of the Womb (06:50)
The wandering old shapes
Bereaved by their last days
The empty seeds, the curse of man
mourning for this given hand
Lonely steps across the land
Trembling heart in the ocean sand
The voice of despair echoes loud here
When the waves carry the old
For mother earth we fall
To the last of man, she'll take us all
Poisoned air, the wasted land
Turns to our tomb
The silence of the womb
The skies blow the last light away
Summer exists only in the writings of the wise
We prepare for our final run
When the winter swallows the sun
07 Under the Waves (06:46)
My heart greeds for frozen stars
Deep black universe upon me
I'm enchanted by this warm light
Yet nothing can melt my cold soul
The lakes, my silent lovers
Whispers from the deep black waters
Ice would keep the ghost's silent
Their mournful song freezes my heart
Come down where the embers burn
Let the night embrace you
And just before the morning haze
You will disappear without a trace
Seasongs change but the sorrow stays
Symphony is getting louder day by day
When the fog raises the dead again
Disharmony of crushing bones
Will take away my pain
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