There is a divine beauty in darkness. In the shrouded bleakness, if you look hard enough, you will always find hope, redemption, and immaculate splendour. For respectively thirty-four and twenty-five years, Saturnus and Swallow The Sun have been mining the melancholic gloom for the glimmers of positivity. They both operate in a corner of the doom metal universe that is melodic and tinged with sadness as opposed to sadism. It is doom metal in the fact that it is slow and pendulous in its delivery, but it has an emotive and poignant core, focusing on affairs of the heart instead of the more fanciful and fantastic.
Read MoreWhy do we do this? Its Valentine's night and we have left perpetually patient partners back at home to stand in the blistering cold of the upstairs room of a shitty pub (the owner's description, not ours). The reason is that we love this music, eternally, triumphantly and truly. The bands on show this evening love this music, it flows through their veins. The audience that has braved the hostility of a Mancunian winter to get here, love this music. Even the characteristically grumpy owner pumping out classic punk downstairs loves this music. It has enslaved us all and it demands both sacrifice and complete obedience.
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