Swallow The Sun

There’s beauty in life. There’s darkness in death. For Swallow the Sun creative force Juha Raivio, his world is the reverse. The Finnish songwriter is funneling the darkness in life and the beauty in death on new album, When A Shadow Is Forced into the Light. While much of the impressive, three-album saga Songs from the North I, II & III was inspired by the old forests of Sweden’s midlands, Swallow the Sun’s seventh album (10th if Songs from the North I, II & III and The Plague of Butterflies EP count) is directly informed by the loss of life partner and singer/songwriter Aleah Stanbridge (aka Aleah Starbridge). Raivio spent many months in the shadows, coping, trying to understand, wishing his loved one a safe journey into the glory of her next life. But when the inspiration finally hit Raivio, the maestro conceived and wrote nine songs over the course of three weeks. The result is a spectacular heart-string pull carefully ferried across a hopelessly scenic set of songs that transcend the boundaries of doom, death, and black metal. The title “When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light” draws from a key line in Trees of Eternity’s “Broken Mirror.”