SWALLOW THE SUN: 'Firelights' Video

Finnish melancholy death-doom metal masters SWALLOW THE SUN have released the official music video for a new song called “Firelights”. The track is taken from the band’s upcoming album, “When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light”, which will be released on January 25. The disc was inspired by the tragic death of South African singer Aleah Liane Stanbridge, the musical and life partner of SWALLOW THE SUN guitarist Juha Raivio. The video was again directed and produced by Aapo Lahtela and Vesa Ranta.

Says the band: “From the ultimate depths of Lumina Aurea, we rose upon the water. Now it is time to light the first torches in the night. Death might be stronger than life, but Love is always stronger than death. This is Firelight!”

Fueled by personal loss (the album title has its origins in TREES OF ETERNITY‘s “Broken Mirror”) and powered by the will to continue, “When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light” showcases the group’s ability to maintain its signature sound while expanding upon horizons and diving deeper into the crevasse of doom-death metal. Even though the single and the album are conceptually connected, they are musically completely different. While “Lumina Aurea” — featuring WARDRUNA‘s Einar Selvik and THE FORESHADOWING‘s Marco I. Benevento — marks the band’s darkest and most sinister piece of music the band has ever released, “When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light” follows a more positive approach and continues in the vein of previous albums — first-rate death-doom in the typical style of SWALLOW THE SUN.

“Every word and note I wrote, I wrote for Aleah,” says Raivio. “And about my own battle since she passed. The album title, ‘When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light’, comes from Aleah‘s own words, ‘When a shadow is forced into the light.’ That was exactly what I needed to do. To push myself out from the shadows. I’ve been pretty much a hermit in the woods for two and a half years. Gathering my life to write this album. That’s also why the subject is very personal and therefore hard for me to talk about. I’d rather leave it all to the music and words on ‘When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light’ to tell the story. It’s all there.”

“When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light” track listing:

01. When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light
02. The Crimson Crown
03. Firelights
04. Upon The Water
05. Stone Wings
06. Clouds On Your Side
07. Here On The Black Earth
08. Never Left