Swallow the Sun released 2019's When a Shadow Is Forced into the Light after the death of guitarist/songwriter Juha Raivio's life partner, poet and vocalist Aleah Stanbridge, who succumbed to cancer in late 2016. After that moving, grief-stricken outing, the band was unable to tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic's global shutdown. Raivio, stuck in isolation in the midst of a Finnish winter, had no choice but to follow the dictates of his terrible muse and write. Moonflowers reflects its composer's meditations on and struggles ...
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Swallow the Sun released 2019's When a Shadow Is Forced into the Light after the death of guitarist/songwriter Juha Raivio's life partner, poet and vocalist Aleah Stanbridge, who succumbed to cancer in late 2016. After that moving, grief-stricken outing, the band was unable to tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic's global shutdown. Raivio, stuck in isolation in the midst of a Finnish winter, had no choice but to follow the dictates of his terrible muse and write. Moonflowers reflects its composer's meditations on and struggles with desolate loneliness. These eight songs are gorgeously presented with classical strings, lush keyboards, and Mikko Kotama男i's (mostly clean) vocals. Opener "Moonflowers Bloom in Misery" balances its doleful plucked-guitar melody with sad orchestral strings. Guitars frame Kotama男i's lilting, gentle vocal before the bridge erupts with force and harmonic dual lead guitar lines. "Enemy" opens with merciless heaviness and harsher vocals that alternate with more tempered singing amid powerful, droning riffs and swelling keyboards atop tom-toms. "Woven into Sorrow" features an anthemic guitar vamp roaring above swelling keyboards and cascading strings. A throbbing bassline clangs against them, buoying Kotama男i's vocal. "Keep Your Heart Safe from Me" begins as a massive midtempo prog chugfest. Dynamics between stripped-down, spacious verses and punishing, bleeding-edge doom metal fit like hand in glove. Amid this unhinged brutality are tender instrumental interludes where melody, harmony, and pillowy textures share an uneasy space. "All Hallows Grieve" commences like a cross between the blues and a prog jam before swirling, phase-shifted guitars and a wordless female vocal chorus paint the foreground. Accompanied by a lilting piano, guest vocalist Cammie Anderson (Ocean of Slumber) duets with Kotama男i atop swirling Mellotrons, strings, a bluesy guitar line, and reverbed snares and tom-toms. "The Void" is fueled by Matti Honkonen's bubbling bassline. It holds ambient space as guitars trade the spotlight with strings, Mellotrons, and Juuso Raatikainen's majestic yet menacing drums. Closer "The House Has No Home" commences with plucked cellos hovering atop Kotama男i's singing: "This house has no home/This home has no heart..." before bone-crushing riffs and blastbeat drums force him to scream. He struggles to sing slowly and cleanly, but buzzing, blackened guitars reinforce the primal-scream delivery. Raivio wrote these eight songs twice: once for the band and once as instrumental classical pieces for chamber strings and piano. The latter versions were recorded in a church by Finland's Trio N O X and are presented here as a bonus disc. Raivio also painted the red moon disc cover in his own blood under dried white flowers. Moonflowers is stunningly beautiful, but it offers little hope. Its thematic reflections of sorrow, horror, loneliness, desperation, and desolation are, in Raivio's inner creative world, hallmarks of Western civilization and the terrible truth that hides in the human heart after experiences of profound loss. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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Add this copy of Moonflowers (Standard Cd Jewelcase) to cart. $18.46, new condition, Sold by Entertainment By Post US-KH rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Indian Trail, NC, UNITED STATES, published 2021 by Century Media.
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Brand New-Please Note: This item MAY be Dispatched directly from our Partner/Supplier in Canada. However, delivery time is extremely quick but please allow an extra couple of days! -SWALLOW THE SUN-MOONFLOWERS (STANDARD CD JEWELCASE)-SINGLE CD.
