Live Review : Swallow The Sun + Draconian + Shores Of Null @ Rebellion, Manchester on April 8th 2023

I look back at my posts from the Pandemic and I really was Mr. Pessimistic about the future of live shows. I worried that they would be a residual disinterest and anxiety about attending concerts once they resumed. Actually, the opposite has been true. Even though we are in the middle of the cost-of-living crisis and the vast majority of us are struggling financially, I have never seen the live music scene this healthy. It's almost as if we have exited lockdown with a different ideology and temperament. We have decided to prioritise what matters for us and for those in our world, that means standing in a small sweaty club watching obscure bands.

I have never seen Rebellion this full. The crowd is gargantuan and when both headline act plays it stretches all the way back far into the bar area. In fact, they have installed a rickety temporary screen by the Merch Desk so that those marooned at the far reaches of the room still can see some of the action. What is most surprising is that I would not label either Draconian nor my beloved Swallow the Sun as buzz bands. Yet inexplicably two obscure doom acts from Scandinavia seem to have dragged every metalhead in the northwest away from the telly and out into the balmy April sunshine.

Shores of Null hale from Rome and don't stray too far from tonight’s musical imprint. Like their touring compatriots, they trade in a Gothic and malignantly lingering form of doom metal. There are traces of heaviness but, it’s more about the slow brooding ethereal nature of the tracks. They manage to achieve that quintessential combination of beauty and malevolence. Because the riffs are so slow and protruding, they manage to wring out every inch of the emotional resonation. Rebellion is unfeasibly full for a Sunny Saturday late afternoon and the capacity crowd takes Shores Of Null to their collective hearts. They were probably strangers to most gathered here this evening but by the time they wind up, they have obviously won an awful lot of new friends.

Draconian last visited these shores in 2015 and the Swedish Gothic-Doom legends are certainly a cult concern. Yet every fan they have within a 300-mile circumference of Rebellion seems to have turned up this evening. There is something utterly captivating about watching a sea of obviously emotionally triggered people sing along to ‘Seasons Apart’ with tears in their eyes. They may visit this country with massive infrequency, but it is obvious that this band matters to those present. That emotionality seeps back onto the stage and it is obvious that the band is overcome by the waves of adoration pouring down on top of them. “We didn’t expect this much warmth” intones an utterly taken-aback Lisa Johansson.

Tonight the contrasting amalgamation of harsh and clean vocals (via Anders Jacobsson’s and Lisa respectively) is just spine tingling exquisite. There is such passion and emotive power in the way that their divergent style intermingles. This is metal but it’s fragile, intricate metal full of poignant melancholic passages. Dark and ominous in nature but interspersed with moments of utter splendour.

Lisa’s return to the band after eleven years away is utterly revelational (it's on par with Tarja returning to Nightwish) and you can tell that she is made up to be back in her comfort zone. In fact, for all the musical gloom that extrudes from the stage, this is actually a band who are utterly in love with what they do. They may well have been lapped by other more successful acts, but that doesn't matter. They have a fiercely loyal fan base and tonight the communion between the two is utterly bewitching.

The set stays, in the main, in the domain of the last two records (bizarrely the only two they recorded with Lisa’s temporary replacement Heike Langhans). Even though you would struggle to find a Draconian fan that would say that they hold a candle to "The Burning Halo" or “Turning the Season Within” every track still elicits a monumental response from the room.

And that's just because, most of the crowd don't care what they play, it's just an utter joy to see them in a live context. Having said all that, with the final track ‘The Daylight Misery’ they go almost back to the beginning and the response is frankly astonishing. What tonight proved beyond doubt is that even the most obscure and looked over act has a room full of people in them that they can reduce to tears. For a number of attendees, this was clearly the moment of their lives and it was a joy to share it with them.

Swallow the Sun are one of the most astonishing live acts that I have had the pleasure to witness, yet after the emotional rollercoaster of Draconian I did find myself thinking "how do they follow that?”. The simple answer is by not trying to and instead playing into the strengths that make them such an extraordinary life proposition. They are much more emotionally detached than Draconian, rather than interact in a communal fashion they stand back and just let the music do the talking. Music that is just extraordinary. In an obviously conscious attempt to distance themselves from what has gone before they bring the heaviness. Swallow the Sun can be contemplative and intricately beautiful. However tonight they lean into their more corrosive and crunching side.

The sound is exquisite. Clear and precise. You can hear every pulsating riffs that falls from Juha Raivio’s guitar. Juha, vocalist Mikko Kotamäki and bassist Matti Honkonen are shrouded in hoods for the duration of the set. It creates a completely different ambiance to Draconian. Mikko’s deeply baritone between-song announcements are almost comical in their absurdity (you can hear sniggers around the room) but what they do do is add to that sinister and malingering essence that inhabits their entire set. 

Swallow the Sun’s songs (especially the later repertoire) are all about pain, suffering, and emotional discourse. That feeling of uncomfortableness just bellows off the stage. It might not be beautiful, but it is actually captivating and you feel drawn into their unravelling tales of woe. With such a relatively short set time and such a magnificent back catalogue to pull from, there will always be winners and losers. Whilst it was fantastic to hear previously overlooked tracks from the “New Moon” I still would have preferred more material from their frankly extraordinary treaty on grief “When a Shadow Is Forced into the Light”.

I'm nit-picking here though as Swallow the Sun are an extraordinary maudlin wonder this evening. Dark dank and just dripping in pathos, they take us on a fabulous and utterly all-encompassing journey into the frailties of humankind and more importantly our hearts. The final three tracks are a tour de force of emotive heaviness. A frantic ‘This House Has No Home’ from 2021’s “Moonflowers” gives way to two musical delves into their dim and distance past. ‘Descending Winter’ and ‘Swallow’ hail respectively from their second and first albums. They are rawer and less refined than their later material, but they still pulsate in dark angular passion.

There is no encore and no final flourishes (there is already a queue of pop punk princesses snaking around the corner for the Manchester punk festival after-party due to be held in the venue after the gig), instead we get a fleeting thank you and they are gone. There are those nights which you expect to be good and end up bordering on the fantastical. This was one of them and a complete testament to the magic that can be elicited when you bring together a group of people who adore the same obscure bands.