Band:	Swallow The Sun
Album:	The Morning Never Came
Style:	Melodic death metal, Melodic doom metal
Release date:	November 2003

01. Through Her Silvery Body
02. Deadly Nightshade
03. Out Of This Gloomy Light
04. Swallow (Horror, Pt. I)
05. Silence Of The Womb
06. Hold This Woe
07. Under The Waves
08. The Morning Never Came
09. Solitude [Candlemass cover][2005 bonus]

Seriously, what is it in the climate, the food or the landscape that makes people from northern territories so unhappy? Is it the snow, the dark forests, the reindeers [I don't know if thre are some in Finland but anyway...] that make them grow despair as if it were a new kind of very nutritive aliment? Sorry about these uninteresting existential questions, but when I hear the first album of the Finnish Swallow The Sun, I'm really glad I live in England, where the morning sometimes comes [even if it's grey, cold and rainy].

Ok let's stick to this The Morning Never Came now. Two words come to my mind: beauty and Sadness. It may be a trifle reducing, but I think it sums up their doom/death quite well. If you want an idea, let's say that Swallow The Sun melts the profound darkness of Shape Of Despair with the beautiful wretchedness of My Dying Bride. Amusing, isn't it? Don't even expect any kind of respite through this album, they seem to enjoy hammering their pain and hatred of enjoyable feelings right into your brain until you finally give up and drown in their diseased beauty.

The pace is, of course, as slow as possible, so the songs are all rather long, in the tradition of doom/death. The music itself is made of heavy riffs, grim arpeggios and intelligently arranged pianos and keyboards that add even more sadness to the whole stuff [as if it were necessary]. The quiet beauty of the musical side is counterbalanced by the desperate screams of the vocalist M. Kotamäki [excellent by the way, he really seems on the edge of suicide], who sounds a bit like Darren of Mourning Beloveth sometimes. Of course we are in Finland, so the production reaches a level that most countries still can only dream of.

Besides, each song develops enough proper identity to avoid boredom and repetition, which is an excellent feature for so young a band. I am impressed. And it is only their first album! I wager that in a few years they'll be quoted as a reference band. Meanwhile, The Morning Never Came is a must-have for doom/death fans.

Highlights: Through Her Silvery Body, Silence Of The Womb, Hold This Woe, and all the rest as well...