By: Tordah

Posted: Sep 16, 2005

In 2003, a totally unknown Finnish doom metal band with a strange name released an album named "The Morning Never Came". An excellent death/doom album packed full with haunting melodies, heavy riffs, brutal vocals and great atmospheric keyboards. The band responsible for this monster was Swallow The Sun. Ever since then I've been looking forward to their next album and now it's finally here. "Ghosts Of Loss" is the name of the album and I already know many doomsters will enjoy this album

The first song 'The Giant' starts off the album with eerie acoustic guitars and clean vocals. Yes, you heard me right, Mikko Kotamäki also does some clean singing on this album. A nice addition to the growling. The song continues with heavier parts with growls and some impressive drumwork by Pasi Pasanen. The familiar Swallow The Sun sound is still present and it sounds better than ever. The song continues with many different parts and keeps things interesting throughout the end. After 12 mins the song is over and it's definitely one of the best tracks that the band has ever written. A brilliant album opener in other words.

The next two tracks follow a path more similar to material from the debut album. Good songs, but at this point I wanted to hear more stuff like the kickass album opener. Luckily the rest of the album sound more fresh and interesting. Especially 'Fragile' with the great clean vocals and strange riffing in the middle of the song. A very powerful and beautiful track. The keyboards here are used very effectively and create a soothing and doomy athmosphere. The band has an ability to sound both brutal and gentle and altering between these moods, making it all sound natural and beautiful. 'The Ship' serves as the last song on the album and is a very epic and mournful song. The song goes through several phases, each sounding more dramatic than the other. It ends with annoyingly high explosion-like sounds and that's the only part of the album I don't like at all. Other than that it's a great album closer.

"Ghosts Of Loss" is a natural follow-up to the debut album. The band know they have a winning concept and they keep it and spice it up with some new elements. The band has become better musicians and also better song-writers. If they continue in this path for the next albums then I think they will have a very bright future. If you are a fan of doom metal then this album is essential. One of my favorite albums of 2005 thus far.

Rating: 9/10

Swallow The Sun website

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