Artist Deep Dive: Sworn (Review)

After recently discovering the Norwegian black metal band Sworn, and thoroughly enjoying their latest record A Journey Told Through Fire, I felt compelled to do a deep dive through their discography. I decided to document this as part of a new named feature on the site. I’m not sure how often I’ll get to do these, but when I can, I will, and I can already think of a few bands I’d love to thoroughly explore in this way. Before then though, we have Sworn. They have three albums other than their latest, and I’m going to concentrate just on these, (they also have a demo, an EP, and some singles to their name). Let’s dig in.

The Alleviation – 2007

We begin back in 2007, with Sworn’s 34-minute debut album. Having only released a short demo – Night Supremacy – two years earlier, The Alleviation was the world’s first real taste of what Sworn were capable of.

Featuring the band’s original vocalist, (Sworn’s current singer would join the same year this album was released), The Alleviation offers an enjoyable journey through melodic blackened waters, albeit of a different variety than they would produce later on.

Sworn’s black metal personality that would manifest more strongly in their later work is not absent, but rather filtered through other styles and influences. The music is primarily bright and upbeat, but with a darkened edge, and contains elements of melodic death metal, thrash metal, and classic heavy metal. The music has a melodic black metal heart, (you can hear an obvious Dissection influence), but that’s not all that’s here at all. It’s an album focused on mid-paced melodic colour, and reveals a different facet of what the band would become.

The Alleviation is Sworn in their nascent form, yet is still engaging enough in its own right.

Bastards and Conquerors – 2009

Bastards and Conquerors is a darker and more black metal affair than The Alleviation, although it’s not a complete departure. You can still hear The Alleviation in Sworn’s sound, as it’s not a complete metamorphosis, more a progression.

Sworn’s new vocalist is fully embedded, and his vocals are as sharp and focused as the music. Sworn pick up the speed and ramp up the aggression, but without sacrificing atmosphere. The band turn their melodic skills to the creation of sombre melancholy moods that layer the music in key places, enriching the whole. The songs are more refined and the melodies generally less overt, more easily stitched into the fabric of the whole.

The songwriting overall has gone up a level on Sworn’s second album, and this is a very enjoyable record indeed. It’s a strong set of changes that Sworn have put themselves through, and Bastards and Conquerors finds the band growing into themselves more and more. With some choice riffs and some great deathly growls, there’s plenty to like here. Yep, this is damn good. As a portent for the future, it was a potent one.

Dark Stars and Eternity – 2018

But that future would take some time to arrive; Dark Stars and Eternity was unleashed almost a decade after its predecessor.

A cascade of memorable riffs and melodic aggression, Dark Stars and Eternity brought Sworn into the present day with forceful impact. Bringing together uplifting rich melody and majestic blackened might, the songs that grace this album are as compelling and well-crafted as you’ll find in the style. The band’s songwriting skills only seem to have gotten sharper and more advanced since Bastards and Conquerors, and many of the aspects that caused the album after this one to grab my attention so much are present and correct.

Dark Stars and Eternity is a gripping work of supreme melodic black metal art. It’s a release that in my mind cements Sworn as one of the top tier bands in their style, and shows late listeners like myself who only discovered the band through A Journey Told Through Fire that Sworn are a band have delivered the goods more than once.

A Journey Told Through Fire – 2023

Which brings us right up to this year’s opus, which is an exemplar of melodic black metal. Rather than simply repeat what worked so well with Dark Stars and Eternity though, on A Journey Told Through Fire Sworn have taken the many strengths from that record and refined them further. A Journey Told Through Fire is probably the darkest and most progressive out of Sworn’s discography, and the band are absolutely on fire.

Rather than simply regurgitate my praise from the full review of this superlative record, I’ll simply say that if you’re even remotely a fan of melodic black metal then this is an utterly essential album to get to know.

I hear that Sworn are already thinking about their fifth album, so hopefully we’ll see that surface sooner than the length of time that some of the other gaps in the band’s discography have been for. Until then though, dig in deep, explore the engaging world of Sworn, and revel in their melodic black metal art.