SWALLOW THE SUN Releases Video For Epic New Single, 'Lumina Aurea'

Finnish melancholy death-doom metal masters SWALLOW THE SUN have released a standalone 14-minute epic single track called "Lumina Aurea".

According to guitarist Juha Raivio, "Lumina Aurea" — which features WARDRUNA's Einar Selvik and THE FORESHADOWING's Marco I. Benevento — marks the darkest and most sinister piece of music SWALLOW THE SUN has ever released.

"'Lumina Aurea' is a song I would never want to write in my life," Raivio says. "It is an open, bleeding black wound from the last two and half years of my life. But I had to write it out. I could not back down from it.

"The way I wrote and recorded 'Lumina Aurea' was so rough emotionally and physically that I think I will never talk about it public. I know this road will go on forever as a part of me, but I have also made a peace with it — that I will never have peace with it. And that the life and the journey here must still go on for a while for those of us remaining.

"I knew that if I would go any deeper on that road with the album as I did with 'Lumina Aurea', the path would not end well. So, I quickly realized that instead I will write an album that will manifest loud and clear that after all, 'Love is always stronger than death.' I wanted to find that angle for 'When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light'. This album is like a weapon for myself. A burning light, a burning torch. Victorious and proud."

Aapo Lahtela and Vesa Ranta at Kaira Films visualized the atmosphere of "Lumina Aurea" in a stunning video clip, which can be seen below.

"The idea for this short-film-like music video came from Juha Raivio and we tweaked the idea a bit to make the story fit into the beautiful landscapes we were going to film it in," states Ranta. "The video has been filmed in several locations around Northern Finland and Lappland.

"We would like to leave the meaning of the story a bit open and to let everyone watching it to make their own conclusions and let their imagination flow. As obvious, things such as grief, torment and even love are present through the video. This is pretty much all we would like to open about it. Some kind of mysticism there definitely is. It was a great pleasure for us to get work with this project, since the song has such a meaning for Juha."

"Lumina Aurea" is available as a 12-inch EP vinyl version and digitally.

Track listing

01. Lumina Aurea
02. Lumina Aurea (instrumental version)

SWALLOW THE SUN's new album, "When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light", will be released on January 25, 2019 through Century Media Records.

SWALLOW THE SUN lineup:

Mikko Kotamäki - Vocals
Matti Honkonen - Bass
Juuso Raatikainen - Drums
Jaani Peuhu - Keys, Vocals
Juho Räihä - Guitar
Juha Raivio - Guitar, Keys