Review Summary: My ships are gone, but the sea will carry me.
There is a visceral brilliance when artists can truly break free from the constraints of normality to create something that stands as its own in every way imaginable. These creations can be legendary and much publicized works of art, or they could be among the most obscure works in existence. With the announcement of
Songs from the North, a triple album of immense scope and ambition, Swallow the Sun were quite at ease with declaring this latest venture their magnum opus. While certainly the most musically adventurous release of their career, the status of being their crowning achievement is a more questionable statement. Ending on a high note with disc three,
Songs… is at its best when showcasing Swallow the Sun’s penchant for exploring even more musical styles than usual, the album’s massive quantity of music improving as it goes on. It wisely ends on an incredibly high note with the unrelenting disc three, the band’s first foray into funeral doom. However, even their heaviest material contains plenty of gentler moments, a beautiful display of how ambitious and far-reaching the band has decided to be – an even more impressive feat considering the sheer breadth of material they have presented here.
The most tantalizing quality of
Songs… is how astoundingly diverse the whole package is. From the exquisite guitars of “Pray for the Winds to Come” to the crushing heaviness of “Abandoned by the Light,” no one can deny how far Swallow the Sun pushed themselves to craft such an intensely effective blend of sounds. When looked at with the context of previous releases, the first disc would essentially be their next studio album with the direction recent releases have pursued. While a solid entry into their catalogue, the following two discs are where
Songs… truly shines. Still, disc one is an impressive display, with “Room and Shadows” accentuating the band’s incredibly effective use of melody, particularly within the tremolo picked guitar harmonies and soaring choruses with some of the best clean vocals of the album. “Heartstrings Shattering” is the ballad of disc one, featuring female vocals and watery synths, making the middle run of tracks the highlight of disc one. While featuring plenty of heavy guitars and growls, the first disc emphasizes the band’s previous direction of cleanly sung choruses and gloomy atmospheres, but nothing like what follows. The second disc consists of nary a growled note or distorted riff, which finds the band members losing themselves to their much softer, more contemplative side. This lends itself to some of the band’s strongest moments, including the beauty of “The Heart of a Cold White Land” and delicate instrumental work of “66°50´N, 28°40´E.”
As a whole,
Songs… will certainly be seen as one of the year’s most interesting and different sort of albums, particularly within the European metal scene. Whether all of this ambition amounts to an end product worthy of being labeled the band’s greatest release is another story. Disc one can get tedious with one whole listen, and such expansive exploration of sounds could have benefited from interplaying with each other, instead of stark musical styles appearing on separate discs. The acoustic release sandwiched between the heavier ones can drag when listened to all at once, featuring none of the praiseworthy dynamics the band are known for. In any case, this monstrous ambition has paid off, with each disc embodying massive qualities of starkly differing sounds, most notably the third. This other side of
Songs... comes in the form of crushing heaviness and some of their longest songs to date. The music descends to the depths of darkness and melancholy within the band’s take on funeral doom metal, featuring their most depressing and dissonant material to date. The genre demands patience, as tempos are slowed to extremes, and minimalistic ambience is rampant to juxtapose the brutality.
The third disc is full of more melodic and softer moments, beautifully reprieving the darkness with light keys and atmospheric soundscapes, particularly within “7 Hours Late.” Black metal elements appear within disc three as well, injecting some welcome variety within “Empires of Loneliness.” Overall, the last disc most closely resembles the band’s earliest material, with the interplay of dynamics within “Empires…” hearkening back to “Under the Waves” from
The Morning Never Came. Despite the beauty of disc two, the foray into funeral doom metal remains the most consistent aspect of
Songs…. While the beginning and middle of this monstrous release flounders at times, the sheer ambition and wide range of musical styles that are explored make this more than worthy of being a highlight of the year. Where Swallow the Sun go from here is a complete mystery, but even if this triple-disc album is not their best release, long time fans will certainly declare this their most important, awe-inspiring release that looks to the past while embracing all aspects of exploration, beauty, and sorrow, in ways that only Swallow the Sun could.
