Disco de Swallow The Sun: “Morning Never Came”

I bought this due to a friend's recommendation and am happy to say that I'm very pleased.I normally dont find much appeal in doom metal, most of the bands within the genre have the tendancy to drag the music and by the time it really gets anywhere I've lost interest.

Swallow The Sun takes a bit of a different approach, adding a bit of melody and synth atmosphere to the mix.The end result is like a bit of a journey of despair and desolation.The clean vocals are quite good but are used sparringly, the harsh growls remain dominant.The songs have some great hooks as well, especially in the songs Silence Of The Womb and Hold Your Woe.

My only complaint (which is more of a major pet peeve of mine) is the lack of complete lyrics in the booklet.The pictures are nice and all, but you can get more out of music like thsi when you can relate the words to it.It only have snippets of the lyrics, and you dont quite know what part of the song the lyric belongs to.

In any case, highly recommended for Doom fans or anyone who generally likes atmospheric, crsuhing metal.This is kinda what Amorphis might have sounded like if they didnt venture down the poppy route.

most doom metal is slow and takes WAY too long to get to the point. this band has more of a melodic doom sound and is heavy (drop C). It is not too depressing, but it is mournful and beautiful. ive tried a bunch of other doom bands, but these guys are still the best ive heard. that is, in their own genre of doom.

Not bad, not bad at all. Tempos and drive are mostly doom-like, but plenty of catchy bits and changes to make things more interesting. (Much better song-writing than most doom albums I've heard!) Lots of great guitar crunch, death vocals and awesome use of synth and piano in a metal context. In fact, great playing all-round, nothing to criticise there. It reminds me of Rapture's "Songs for the withering", except slower tempos - that's another one for the "must have" list. Hey, there's even a few teasing moments of clean vocals for Opeth-style fans, in fact I would have given an extra 1/2 star for even more of that! :) Buy with confidence!

Being a fan of metal, but not specifically doom or death metal, it took a while to really get into this debut album by Swallow the Sun. But already during the first listen I could tell that this was a high-quality album that I needed to spend more time with. That assumption was proven true - this album has become a modern classic in my book!

The young band from Finland clearly planned this one well. There are some brilliant guitar riffs and melody ideas, drummer Pasi Pasanen (who, sadly, has since left the band) is amazing, and vocalist Mikko Kotamäki inspires awe. His clean vocal style is not all that special, but his control over the variations of his scream vocal technique is impressive already on this first full-length album. The track "Hold This Woe" is a powerful demonstration of Pasanen's and Kotamäki's skills, with the intro's and ending's super-cool ride cymbal sounds and all the moments of gloom and spurts of energy in between. Everything is held together by the strong and sharp guitar work of Juha Raivio and the other guitarists, and accented by the subtle but magnificent work of keyboardist Aleksi Munter.

Many of these songs could be mainstream metal classics if performed with a different vocal vibe and a faster tempo. But that is not what Swallow the Sun set out to do. I just wish their subsequent albums were as good as this one. So far, I feel that has not been the case.

A nice combination of melody over crushing doom riffs makes for an interesting album. Good songwriting, though I wish the lyrics were easier to discern.