10 best Swallow the Sun songs

This is my list of the best Swallow the Sun songs. Swallow the Sun is a band that I probably should enjoy more, considering how much I enjoy the death/doom metal style. I don’t find them as exquisite as Slumber, Rapture, Mourning Beloveth or Daylight Dies, but they’ve surely written some great songs over the years. This intro text is now over, let’s start my top 10 countdown of the best Swallow the Sun songs.

10. Deadly Nightshade (“The Morning Never Came”, 2003)

One of Swallow the Sun’s most heavy, driving tracks. It’s a nice change from their often calculated and well-polished melodic style.

9. Descending Winters (“Ghosts of Loss”, 2005)

A nice take on their signature style that blends the distorted and clean guitar parts especially well.

8. Rooms and Shadows (“Songs From the North”, 2015)

I’m not that impressed with Swallow the Sun’s three album experiment “Songs From the North”. The scope on some of their regular albums has already been too big for the material at hand, in my opinion. “Rooms and Shadows” is quite a pleasant song from the sessions though, excelling at the signature melodic death/doom metal style.

7. The Gathering of the Black Moths (“Songs From the North”, 2015)

Swallow the Sun’s dive into the funeral doom metal style is ocassionally interesting, and never more than in this song. Mikko’s voice works very well in this musical style. It’s also interesting to hear them play minimalistic music, that isn’t as realiant on traditional melodicism.

6. Falling World (“New Moon”, 2009)

Katatonia-styled clean vocal song that embodies their style of depressive rock down to every 4/4 beat. It has a very catchy main guitar melody. The vocal patterns are catchy too, even though I don’t find Mikko’s clean vocals particularly amazing.

5. The Giant (“Ghosts of Loss”, 2005)

The epic opener from “Ghosts of Loss” starts out with an instantly recognizable clean guitar line. Some clean vocals are added before exploding into classic Swallow the Sun death/doom. The calm parts are a tad more interesting from the heavy ones, but the expanding dynamics makes it a nice song.

4. Swallow (“The Morning Never Came”, 2003)

“Swallow” is a favorite for many with good reason. There are many instantly recognizable guitar parts, both heavy and melodic, and the start and stop verses are quite different for this music style. The minus is probably that it isn’t as emotionally affecting as the three songs yet to come on this list.

3. Through Her Silvery Body (“The Morning Never Came”, 2003)

The first song on Swallow the Sun’s debut album, and also one of their best ones. The main melody repeated throughout the song is beyond nostalgic. It also has some very well-designed hooks, where the vocals and guitars interplay perfectly.

2. The Justice of Suffering (“Hope”, 2007)

Jonas Renkse’s vocal lines light up this song. His performance in this song is almost better than in Katatonia, perfectly matching the Swallow the Sun melodic death/doom style. The song also has some solid growl hooks and guitar work to back him up.

1. Out of This Gloomy Light (“The Morning Never Came”, 2003)

The ultimate Swallow the Sun song, and one of the best death/doom metal songs ever. The clean guitar line that opens the song builds the whole way, almost like a post metal song. The icing on the nice instrumentation are the sorrowful lyrics and passionate growls.