SWALLOW THE SUN – Shining

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: http://swallowthesun.net/

We’ve last left the Finnish melodic doom death ensemble Swallow The Sun (STS) on their second album dedicated to, and in mourning of, the tragically and too early departed South African singer, Julia Liane “Aleah Starbridge” Stanbridge and her thus brutally ended romantic relationship with Swallow The Sun’s founding guitarist and main songwriter, Juha Raivio. Moonflowers²⁰²¹ was a return to form after the mixed bag, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light²⁰¹⁹, which was very appropriately titled, as if Stanbridge’s death had thrown the talented Swallow The Sun into a creative disarray, at least for quite a spin. The 2021 album fixed much of what had made its predecessor such a half-cooked meal to these ears plus it left a promise of better things to come, which Shining²⁰²⁴, released on October 18th via Century Media, with its more immediate and catchier melodiscism accentuated by Dan Lancaster’s (Bring Me The Horizon, Blink 182) excellent now rock now metal production, largely fulfills, easily both the most varied and the most focused effort since New Moon²⁰⁰⁹, even if it doesn’t quite hold a candle to either their magnum opus Hope²⁰⁰⁶ or their brilliant debut The Morning Never Came²⁰⁰³.

Out Of This Gloomy Light²⁰⁰³ (EP), from fascination with My Dying Bride, Type O’Negative, Paradise Lost, Katatonia (big time) and old Opeth a new construct was born, so adequately named Swallow The Sun, a perfect euphemism for depression, given birth by Juha Raivio (guitar, 2018-keys) and Pasi Pasanen (drums-2009), of whom Raivio is the only remaining founder today, and then ushered in one of the finest doom death metal albums in the history of the genre, “The Morning Never Came”, which was followed by the slightly disappointing Ghosts Of Loss²⁰⁰⁵ and then a mind-blowing, and never surpassed, “Hope” along with equally great Plague Of Butterflies²⁰⁰⁸ EP, leading up to the very good “New Moon” and even better Emerald Forest And The Blackbird²⁰¹². In my view, the band took a bit too much upon themselves with the trifecta 3 LP (I – Gloom, II – Beauty and III – Despair) album Songs From The North²⁰¹⁵ and the result was mixed, nevertheless, “Empire Of Loneliness” still defines suicidal rationale to one who’s familiar with it more than twice, while “10 Silver Bullets” and “Rooms & Shadows” are among the finest songs in their career. From “New Moon” through “Songs” Juha Raivio’s true love Aleah Stanbridge, officially just a constant guest appearance, had de facto been almost like the seventh (next to Raivio, vocalist Mikko Kotamäki, bassist Veli Matti Honkonen, as well as, as of later, drummer Juuso Raatikainen <2014> and Before The Dawn guitarist Juho Räihä <2018-guitar>) member of Swallow The Sun to the point that, when she died, she really did throw the future of the band for a spin. Indeed, Juha already excorcised the demon of grief through, first, Trees Of Eternity’s Hour Of The Nightingale²⁰¹⁶ (with Aleah practically counting days to her passing) and the angry and bitter Hallatar’s album cynically named No Stars Upon The Bridge²⁰¹⁷, which did not let up through the peculiar and confused “When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light” or through the very good and remarkably focused yet almost suicidal “Moonflowers” or, in fact, this here, equally very good “Shining”.

If, as the Buddhist say, the best therapy for a bleeding heart is to…stay bleeding, it doesn’t seem to be working for Juha. In fact, the tragedy and the pointlessness of Aleah departing in the bloom of her age vis-a-vis her love with Juha is just one more proof that convinces me that the Almighty God controls nothing on Earth except for some of the aspects of His most devout worshippers’ lives, everyone free to find their own meaning of life with or apart from Him with consequences thereto appertained. In any case, we are not victims of blind fate but architects of our own worked out destiny except…when we’re not! That confusion that everyone who’s honest about the reality of life as we live it, feels about it, shows throughout “Shining”, an album spiritually and existentially so honest it could very well break hearts. I think Swallow The Sun may have invented a new genre here: tragiromantic doom death metal! Try listening to “Tonight Pain Believes”, a better and younger brother of “Crimson Crown”, with its ice cold resolution “out of time I believe in neverlasting love” as you “suffer like no other” while “ripping the wounds so they heal faster” and tell me Juha wrote this while playing Minecraft while drinking mojitos sunbathing on Miami beach! Or listen to the practical tribute (even vocally!) to the dearly missed Peter “O’Steele” Ratajczyk and his Type O’Negative that is the perfect “November Dust” (not surprisingly differing just in one letter from the legendary October Rust¹⁹⁹⁶ which may have been one of the sparks that lit the genre powder keg, that perfect music to make love to). The resignation and desperation, well, shining through this remarkable composition is no doubt so strong due to the fact that it mourns two people at once, definitely one of the best songs STS has ever written and I think Peter would smile at this one.

The question of identity of one disfigured by painful life experience is the subject of another highlight, the first video single, “What I Have Become”, an interesting mix of two seemingly incompatible elements: blackened extreme death metal and gothic almost pop metal with a very hopeful chorus, a track highly reminiscent of one of my favorite cuts from “Hope”, the la fin de l’amour anthem “These Hours Of Despair”. The theme is taken to the logical conclusion in the following “MelancHOLY” (no case typo) where a question is asked, essentially, to what degree can grief through surrender to melancholy can save you or when does it become your undoing, when does it become your death through idolatry for, as wonderful if a brief a relief as it can often be, neither it nor any other thing in life is God – only God is God. As Juha himself stated regarding the “hit” (you’ll get it when you hear it) second video single, it soon had become clear to him that writing another “Moonflowers” album would kill him so, he made a quiet wish to himself that if there ever would be any new music then he would, please, have a little bit of mercy on himself rather than be that infinite black hole that will suck out the rest of his remaining light and soul just for the sake of it, and, while it was easy to realize this (or, as we the neurodivergent types prefer to say, to take it by brain) the struggle, which, as on the predecessor, vocalist Mikko voices in the act of incredibly heartrending empathy with his bandmate (not to mention his own pain of losing a dear friend in Aleah), resulting in probably the best vocal performance on a STS album, continues in the fantastic “Liberation” Katatonic darkness of “Under The Moon & Sun” where the protagonist wants us to make him believe “that is all there could be” seemingly begging for all the darkness to come at him full strength all at once so that he can finally enjoy some light as soon as the darkness subsides, instead of getting a glimpse in between the storms of the dark to the extent that night becomes the new day (allusion to Night Is The New Day ²⁰¹⁰ by Katatonia well intended by me, as, no doubt by STS), or throughout the downright Enslaved-style black metal of “Charcoal Skies” and is concluded in the magnificent resignation of the closing title track, again, one of their finest compositions in STS career. As a famous Polish singer Sanah hails in her recent hit, e viva l’arte!

Since it is obvious around the age of 50 (Juha a bit older than me) to anyone who’s not rich or affluent in this world “that tears us apart” that, as that sage of life, William Shakespeare put it in Macbeth’s mouth “life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” we have two choices: fear every proceeding minute of it, expecting a horror at every corner or actually forget the hopeless hopes of some undefined and elusive happiness and take this life as each day comes, to quote Biohazard’s “Switchback”, making the best out of every moment, no matter how painful or costly. And that’s exactly what “Shining” is about, a realization of the choice to stop fearing life and, instead, facing it head on, warts and all. Don’t call it hope, don’t call it love, don’t call it faith if you choose not to – call it life, plain and simple. In fact, don’t even call it life, call it living, for what life is it that has to have death factored in? You don’t have to love this living or even like it, you just have to live it or die, or, as Stephen King’s “Shawshank Redemption’s” protagonist Andy Dufresne puts it “get busy living or get busy dying” , even if it means, “on my shore I’m shining dark”…alone.