Swallow The Sun - Hope
|
Published Jan. 15 2007
|
Genre |
Death/Doom Metal |
Mikko Kotamäki
|
Vocals
|
Tracks |
9 |
Markus Jämsen
|
Guitar
|
Runningtime |
64 Min. |
Juha Raivio
|
Guitar
|
Label |
Spinefarm |
Matti Honkonen
|
Bass
|
Release |
07 Feb. 2007 |
Pasi Pasanen
|
Drums
|
Country |
Finland |
Aleksi Munter
|
Keyboard
|
Similar artists |
Opeth, Katatonia,
Sentenced |
|
Critically acclaimed Swallow The Sun from Finland return
with their third full-length album. And for this one the band isolated
themselves on an island outside of Helsinki for the recording sessions
and it resulted in this album entitled Hope. Swallow The Sun performs
a lighter form of death and doom metal. Don't get me wrong, it is heavy,
gloomy and with a slooooow tempo, but they have the knowledge of how
to spice up the melancholia to make it more, in lack of better words,
easy-listening. The music is progressive and artistic without becoming
pretentious and Swallow The Sun deliver Hope with a grand feeling. The
vocals are combined successfully and range between clean and growls
and are delivered by Mikko Kotamäki that handles both the techniques
well. His clean vocals are soft and emotional while the growls are coming
from deep down his belly, yet with a melodic sense.
This is a tasteful album where it despite the growls and
ultra heavy doomy riffs does not turn out as particularly aggressive
music. With soft guitars and the electronic backdrops they create a
beautiful sweeping feeling that makes the music having a constant flow
no matter how slow it goes, as in Doomed To Walk The Earth which is
really a slow and dark track, tastefully performed with the sweeping
female background vocals to back up the really dark growls. The track
Don't Fall Asleep has been released as a single, and it feels like the
obvious choice with its combination of heavy doom and romantic HIM melancholia
that comes out really well in something that could be called a death
metal ballad, with the keyboards and the heavy parts reminding me somewhat
of Dark Tranquillity.
Hope is a clever album with complex structures, many layers
in the sound and tasteful arrangements that combined create an atmosphere
that I really like. Furthermore, they are not overdoing anything but
you have to be in the right mood to listen to it and to really appreciate
its magnificence. To break off the slower songs we find the track These
Hours Of Despair that almost appears fast even though it is mid-tempo.
It is not completely unlike Dark Tranquillity and has a great melodic
riff and a nice flow to it. It is great melodic death metal and I would
have liked to hear more of this on Hope to break the inevitable monotony
with this kind of music. Vocal guests on the album are Jonas Renkse
(Katatonia) and Tomi Joutsen (Amorphis), and with Jonas' performance
on The Justice Of Suffering you get a good mix of death metal doom mixed
with emotional progressive music like Katatonia, a collaboration that
turned out greatly if you ask me.
The album cover says that there are eight tracks on the
album, but when I put the disc in my CD-player I can hear nine tracks.
If the ninth is supposed to be a hidden track I am not sure of, or if
it might even be a cover track? Nevertheless, it is in the same vein
as the other tracks so the reason for this extra song remains a mystery
for now. (Update: track #9 is called These Low Lands and will be
released as a bonustrack on the limited digipack version. //Tommy)
Performance
|
Originality
|
Production
|
Vocals
|
Songwriting
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Summary
|
|