By Jase Walker
Things are finally looking up weather-wise and I’m enjoying being able to turn up to shows with just a T-shirt now, which is a privilege I never take for granted. Not that it matters much as I get bundled into a darkened room to listen to a bunch of metal thanks to a bunch of Finns in the form of Swallow The Sun.
These guys caught my attention thanks to their association with a lot of bands that are on the Pelagic Records label despite not being on it themselves. In addition to headlining their show, we’ve got two supports in the form of Stam1na and Before The Dawn to round things out. It may be warm outside but it’s going to be folks from the cold north that’ll be setting the scene tonight.
Stam1na signals their start with a loud drone suddenly booming over the speakers, they walk on and face the drummer before the first riff hits. This goes from ambient intro to rapid fire riffs and blasting drums in a split second, immediately jumping from zero to 100 per cent.
Kicking things off in the right way for an opener, the room is still somewhat sparse due to them playing so soon after (early-ish) doors. Always good to see a band that still fully gets behind every non-drummer doing synchronized hair windmills too. Sounding reminiscent of bands such as At The Gates, the mix of big riffs and subtle synths, this is some good old fashioned thrashy melo-death and I love it. The mid-song banter is a bit dry but still amusing and they’re connecting well with the audience as well, gotta have fun with that too! I am a little bit concerned about the turnout for this show at this point though, this date landed on a particular Dutch holiday of Liberation Day which may have impacted the attendance.
Still though, they sound great, look great, and they’re putting in a lot of energy into the show. The job of an opener act is never easy and Stam1na is clearly still treating this show with professionalism and putting in all the care and attention they would at any other show. Moving towards the end of the set, the sound of the songs take a marked swerve in terms of style to something that wouldn’t be out of place on a Strapping Young Lad album. To really give these guys credit, they sounded absolutely massive and were genuinely impressive throughout the whole set. Excellent start.
Before The Dawn opted for a more subtle drone as they walked into the stage followed by massive, powerful rolling drums to build the hype up. Considerably stronger synths here and going for a much more traditional melo-death sound over what we had with Stam1na earlier. Their singer appears and those growls he’s putting out are terrifying and remind me a lot of super early In Flames but switches to cleans and the difference between those styles is massive, his cleans remind me of the singer of The Rasmus!
More synchronized headbanging and flinging hair around, it’s the Nordics in the house tonight, it’d be weird without it. The room by now looks considerably busier and a lot more focused eyes are intently studying Before The Dawn and seem to be steadily warming up to them. Not totally sure why the guitarist spat a ton of water almost directly over the singer at one point.
Admittedly I’m enjoying the heavier segments with the unclean growls much more than the melodic clean parts as it just carries a lot more oomph overall. Their singer has a great range though to his credit, I just think he excels at the unclean vocal style and the rest of the band really drive it along too. A solid set for part two of tonight’s show, a good slice of melo-death to get my ears around before the final part of Swallow The Sun.
The stage darkens and is illuminated by several pillars of dotted lights around the stage, quite a beautiful layout to behold. A sombre song begins to boom across the speakers to an absent stage, the band taking their time before walking on. After an extended intro segment, they get properly started and their unique brand of doomy yet melodic metal fills the room. I really love how besides the pillars of pulsing white light, the band themselves are almost entirely silhouettes.
It’s quite a change in pace compared to the often fast and heavy opening acts for this show, but it’s not long before their singer demonstrates that they’ve got incredible live unclean vocal chops that would embarrass even the most well-honed of deathcore vocalists. Swallow The Sun really shines when they lean into the droney doom side of their style, creating textured soundscapes that lumber along in an incredible fashion.
They take all of the more subtle elements of doom, smash them together with melo-death and symphonic and the end result is a band that builds incredible tension in slower segments before building into an incredible peak. Genuinely brilliant at delivering an earth shattering performance with every single song, each part crafted to keep you on the hook until giving you whiplash with the release of tension.
This is the sort of performance you can’t help but constantly grin while watching because of how damn good it sounds and how good the band are performing it too. The sound balance is spot on, everything is fully audible from the guitars to the backing synths, even the guitar solos pop out when they hit too. This has been a truly fantastic and epic performance from Swallow The Sun, utterly brilliant start to finish. I do feel bad for them about the turnout for this show but those who were here got to witness Swallow The Sun kill it and that’s the main thing!
Anyway, I need to find my jaw again after it dropped on the floor about an hour ago, blimey.
