SWALLOW THE SUN
Born from grief, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light is the doom-death metallers’ darkest album to date
How can a band possibly follow up an epic, three-hour triple album? Finland’s Swallow The Sun stepped into 2019 with When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light – an album that vocalist Mikko Kotamäki says almost didn’t happen. “When Songs From The North came out, it was way too fucking long and we were touring pretty much all the time for two years,” he says. “It was pure hell and we’re never going to do that again. At some point, it looked like we wouldn’t even release another album.”
Written in the shadow of the death of Aleah Stanbridge, guitarist and songwriter Juha Raivio’s girlfriend, their seventh album conveys Juha’s feeling of shattering loss and devastation in their inimitable gloomy style. Despite its hard-hitting subject matter, Mikko explains that it was less traumatic to produce than its predecessor.
“When we decided to continue the band, the album came together in just a couple of months and it didn’t take much time to work through,” he remembers. “When Juha starts to write songs, he does it in a couple of weeks. He doesn’t even remember writing this album; he doesn’t remember anything from that time.”
Their shortest record to date, with only eight tracks and running for less than an hour, When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light shifted the band’s focus from their signature growls to clean vocals. Mikko effectively became the voice of Juha’s emotions, performing lyrics inspired by his bandmate’s personal tragedy.
“There was no pressure at all to make another fucking three-hour album this time; it turned out really naturally,” Mikko explains. “When you do the growling thing for many years, it’s very refreshing. There’s no way to prepare yourself for this material, but it probably helps that we are really introverted Finnish guys and we’re not very outgoing personalities. Life is always hard for Finnish people.”
With new guitarist Juho Räihä and keyboardist Jaani Peuhu on board, When A Shadow… casts the traditionally death-doom metal Swallow The Sun in a brave new light, from the raw heartbreak of Firelights to the crushing Upon The Water. “It’s the first album with a new line-up and the first after some tragic events, so I guess it’s a fresh start; it feels almost like a brand new band,” says Mikko. “We’re very happy with how it turned out even though it’s a bit different from our other albums.”
When A Shadow… hit the Finnish album charts at No.1, and next year they’ll be marking their 20th anniversary. “It’s a special year for us as a band, so we’ll be playing some special shows for the anniversary,” he reveals. “We can play those more death metal songs from the first album while we’re asleep, but these new songs are harder to perform live. It’s more of a challenge – that keeps it interesting for us!”
“IT LOOKED LIKE WE WOULDN’T DO MORE ALBUMS”