LIVE REVIEW: Swallow The Sun @ The Underworld, London

We may well be in the heart of spring but tonight the gloom descends on London as the Finnish extreme metal veterans SWALLOW THE SUN headline the world famous The Underworld in Camden Town. The fact that a band of this stature is playing one of the most intimate and well-loved venues in the country is enough to get their fans salivating, but the fact that they have brought along some pretty hard hitting friends is something that makes tonight very special indeed.

The proceedings tonight are opened by AEONIAN SORROW who play to a room that is rapidly filling. The band quickly set about delivering their brand of melodic doom metal with the ponderous riffs sounding gargantuan in a small, claustrophobic venue such as this. The vocal duties are handled by Ville Rutanen who delivers low, guttural growls and Gogo Melone whose beautifully powerful singing voice along with the atmospheric synths and keys gives the music a wonderfully melodic edge. The material on display is all of a high standard, but there is a distinct lack of showmanship and unfortunately that means that despite a warm, polite response from the crowd, they are relatively unengaging.

Rating: 6/10

The following act OCEANS OF SLUMBER are a different beast entirely. They take to the stage with a chilling clean guitar tone with vocalist Cammie Gilbert mirroring the melody back perfectly. Instantly the performance is more entrancing than the last with Gilbert looking almost possessed as she sways to the infectious progressive metal grooves laid down by her band mates.
For a group that are less than a decade in to their career they have a ridiculously deep bag of tricks to reach in to. From the eerie melodic refrain in Sunlight which feels as though it was written for the soul purpose of etching its way in to your brain, to the frantic blast beats at the end of The Decay Of Disregard, OCEANS OF SLUMBER are a band that know how to entertain a crowd and keep them engrossed throughout the duration of their set. The band close out their set with a beautiful ballad that sees Gilbert reduced to tears with the crowd eating out of the palm of their hand. The gauntlet has been laid down for the headliners to step up their game and follow on from the tremendous set that OCEANS OF SLUMBER tonight. They are not quite headliners tonight but it won’t be long before they are.

Rating: 8/10

The gauntlet may have been laid down by the main support, but this is not an ordinary band who aim to pick it up. SWALLOW THE SUN have been creating an expansive blend of progressive, doom and black metal for almost two decades at this point. Pageantry is a huge focal point for SWALLOW THE SUN as they hit the stage amidst a cloud of smoke dressed in cloaks that resemble that of the Nazgul and head straight in to the colossal title track from their latest release When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light. The dulcet tones from frontman Mikko Kotamäki sound even more sorrowful and sinister than usual and play wonderfully against the epic musical backdrop that his bandmates lay down for him. The band then switch from the beautiful to the brutal at the flick of a switch and pulverise the small venue with lashings of blast beats and shrill banshee screams that would sit happily in the middle of any black metal band’s set. It has to be said at this point that the addition of the new keyboardist/backing vocalist Jaani Peuhu is a breath of fresh air with his energy and showmanship adding another level to the show as well as his impressive vocal performance linking up with Kotamäki perfectly.

The second track in the set Lost & Catatonic, from the band’s 2015 effort Songs From The North I, II & III, sounds apocalyptic in comparison to its predecessor with the deep guttural death growls, slow trudging riffs and atmospheric keys. The lead guitar lines from Juho Räihä and Juha Raivio interlink wonderfully and drive the melody of the song onwards before the gothic rock influenced vocal lines in the closing couple of minutes provide one of the biggest singalong moments of the entire evening. One of the highlights of the set has to be the near perfect rendition of the classic track Cathedral Walls which sounds as dark and powerful as it did when it was released back on Emerald Forest And The Blackbird as the band approach it with almost laughable confidence and ease through its almost seven minute duration, enthralling the audience throughout with its twist and turns and beautifully dark vocal patterns and hellish screamed sections. The same goes for Stone Wings from the new album which holds its own in and amongst the stone wall classics of the bands extensive catalogue. The tranquil opening session builds gradually with echoing drums sounding like they belong in the Royal Albert Hall as opposed to The Underworld until the walls of guitar come in and bathe the crowd in the thick layers of distortion. The beautiful, sorrowful vocals soothe and transcend over the heavy instrumentals before switching to demonic guttural vocals at the flip of a hat, once again proving the supreme capabilities of the veteran frontman.

The encore is a wonderful salvo of Emerald Forest And The Blackbird and Swallow (Horror Part I) shows that the band have one of the most versatile and well crafted back catalogues in metal music. The ease and confidence that the band attack their epic opuses with throughout the set is almost humorous as most bands would struggle to pull them off on their finest days. Yet SWALLOW THE SUN approach everything they do with aplomb and a calm that is simply awe inspiring. It is a testament to the quality of the song writing that the band can come across with such a feeling of grandeur and drama and that is helped along by little more than the aforementioned stage presence and not having to rely on over the top stage production to encapsulate the magnitude of the music on display. Tonight has been a tremendous success for a band who have been criminally overlooked for many years.

Rating: 9/10

Check out our photo gallery from the night’s action in London from Karolina Janikunaite here: