Swallow The Sun
The Morning Never Came

THE REVIEW

"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"