SWALLOW THE SUN ARE UPON THE DAWN OF A NEW MOON
Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 10:05am by Vince Neilstein
Autumn is upon us. The days are a little shorter and the shadows a little longer, the light a little dimmer and the breeze a bit cooler. It happens every year (and I write about it every year), but it gets no less easy for me to swallow each time… Winter is coming. Soon enough Daylight Saving Time will end and a month after that New York will be enveloped in darkness every night by 5pm. And it’ll be fucking cold.
Still, I think that those of you who live in climates where it’s roughly the same year-round are missing out on an quintessential human experience. There’s something intangible that comes along with the change of seasons — beyond it just meaning that Football season is starting — that is difficult to describe or put to words. It’s an ebb and flow to life, a coming and going, a give and take, a cyclical nature to the events of your life that I can’t imagine is experienced in the same way when it’s warm out all the time. As much as I fucking hate the winter — and I fucking hate it — I’m not sure I’d give it up for a uniform, level sameness year after year after year. Where’s the fun and the hope in that? Where’s the joy in that first day when the cold breaks, when you go outside, it’s a bit brighter, and you see the tiniest green bud on a tree? The pure elation and child-like excitement that so many fun things are around the corner? How can you fully appreciate the good without first experiencing the bad?
No band’s music (and their name) encapsulates that feeling for me better than Swallow the Sun. I’d imagine that growing up in Finland — where a severely dampened version of daylight lasts for just a few hours mid-Winter — had quite an effect on the band’s ability to translate the feelings of longing, aching, hope and despair that Winter and darkness bring into notes that so perfectly summon them. As someone who doesn’t really listen to lyrics, I’m talking purely about the music here — and this band gets it. They know what I go through, and they tell the story in their doomy, lush, dark arrangements.
Swallow the Sun’s new record New Moon comes out on November 10th (Nov 4 in Finland and Nov 9 in the UK), just in time for Winter’s arrival. They have a mini-site set up where you can stream clips of the full album and, of course, pre-order the record. If New Moon is as good as Swallow the Sun’s prior records (and all indications are that it will be) I will be spinning this one a lot to get me through the deep, dark Northeast winter.
-VN
I’ve lived my entire in the swampy rural areas of South FL and I’ve never even seen snow. People think it would be nice to live here year-round, but that’s usually people from up north with harsh winters (although many transplants are shocked at how cold our winters get…that humidity works against you in the heat and the cold).
But I totally agree…you sweat your balls off and the trees are all green for ten months out of the year, then the other two months it cools down and the trees just turn straight from green to brown and the grass dries up and that’s about it. I can’t remember the last Christmas where I didn’t wear shorts & flip-flops. It sucks and I would love to live somewhere that you can actually tell the seasons are changing (although living in heavy snowfall areas must suck a lot in its own right).
I live in N.E Ohio and let me tell ya, it blows. It gets cold as fuck, tons of snow and the worst part is it seems to hang around forever. We can swap if you like!!!
Absolutely. I can get frostbite, and you can get bear-caught! (heat exhaustion)
Fuck yeah, never even heard of bear caught. We just call that death by sun!
If you haven’t yet, watch the classic movie “Cool Hand Luke”…that’s a pretty common thing on that old Florida chain-gang!
I got bear-caught working one summer when I was about 16 and it’ll make you feel as weak as a 90-year old man.
Dudes I live in an Island in the Caribbean,, No snow, No change of Seasons.. just gets fresh on December and u know the best place to live is one that u can seen the change of Seasons, see the how the trees change color and all I guess Winter Rules and its metal
No doubt winter is metal. The fall is my personal favorite time. The trees look dead and everything is gray. Metal as fuck.
Swallow The Sun are incredible regardless of the weather. But with this, plus the new albums from Paradise Lost, Katatonia and Insomnium albums that’s an Autumn bonanza.
Those clips sound very promising. Striking artwork too.
Concurred
I’ve lived in all corners of the country, and I have to say, I like San Diegan weather the best, where it is perfect year round. I thought I’d miss the snow and winters at first when I moved here (because I actually like the cold), but it turns out I don’t miss it one bit and laugh at those who have to go through it.
huge fan of Swallow The Sun. Pumped for this
When I want to experience change in seasons the closest i can ever seem to get is throwing on jeans instead of shorts and listening to Pelican.
Chicago winters will kill you
Yes. Yes they will. The Windy City+ snow, ice and sub zero temp= DEATH! Good friend of mine moved back here from up there with some killer stories of your wintry months.
Absolutely. Driving to the city in a blizzard in the middle of the night with the skyline in front of you is a beautiful thing, though.
Winter in Kansas sucks….just gets really fucking cold (-10* sometimes), but it never gets enough snow to be anything other than a nuisance. I wouldn’t mind the cold if we got plenty of snow.
Might have to give this band a listen when I get off work….been listening to some Elend, and while it didn’t fit at first, I’m starting to like it a lot more. It’s like a true horror movie (Hitchcock and Price) translated into sound. Sort of like Hell distilled into music.
Forgot to mention ^^, WV winters are a lot better than Kansas winters. Lots of snow, regular weather, and it doesn’t get too cold, maybe 0* or so.
It’s not truly cold until you go outside and the hairs in your nose freeze the first time you breathe in.
It’s band likes this that give me hope for the future of metal….Now only if we could kill all of the douchecore bands we would be set!!
I do agree. There’s something unique that accompanies the change that I wouldn’t give up. But to the contrary – I love winter, I love snow. The image of winter that I have in my head – a street lamp, casting a white light that lights a white circle in the night, with snowflakes falling in it. That’s a unique atmosphere that I love.
Crushing northern darkness!
Fuck all of you, I live in MI and our economy sucks as bad as our weather lol…but we have lots of beautiful scenery in the UP!!!!!
fuck you guys winter is great
Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are much better albums
Haha, when I read the title of this post I thought you were gonna say that Swallow the Sun has a song on the New Moon (Twilight 2) soundtrack. No joke.
I live in Wyoming…. It is cold. Only thing good about fall is that its hunting season and the fishing gets amazing. Other than that the dread of winter is upon us. Already got seven inches of snow on the mountain near us.
I spent my first 18 years in New York, dealing with the horrendous and everlasting winter every year, and I fucking hated it, but certain things would always brighten up the winter. For one, black metal sounds a thousand times better when you’re freezing your nuts off. Then there’s Giants football, which I look forward to every year like a kid waiting to open christmas presents. And then there were the weekends. Every Friday and Saturday night throughout the winter was always “whiskey in the cold” night. Our fake IDs were way too fake for bars, but we could always get liter bottles of whiskey for cheaper than shit, so we would just bundle up and throw it down until being drunk in the cold and harassing people was actually a fun activity. Then I went to LA for my first year and a half of college, where people say it’s too cold to be outside whenever the temperature is below 60. There were no seasons at all, except fire season. I started really missing the shitty NY winters and being plastered on the street and not giving a shit. Everything was exactly the fucking same every day, and I couldn’t get used to that shit at all. So last year, when I transfered back home just as the winter was really getting shitty, I was pretty stoked. I’m looking forward to another horrendously awesome winter this year. I’m just glad I don’t live in Canada.
i love massachusetts unpredictable winters
I’m from Buffalo.
I just found these guys recently and have to say they are fucking awesome. I had never really listened to anything in the doom genre before but now I’m on nothing short of a quest to find good death/doom, funeral doom (doom metal with growling and screaming to put it simply) bands. do you guys know any good ones? So far Ive only found these guys, Rapture, and Slumber…
Funeral doom: Esoteric, Evoken, Ahab, Catacombs are all awesome. So very crushingly heavy. Try Doom:VS, Saturnus, and Shape of Despair as well. Especially Shape of Despair. \m/
Awesome. thanks a lot. Shape of despair is fucking amazing btw