Spotlight on Cult of Luna‘s new album.
For this tenth album, titled In The Shadow Of Your Shadow, Johannes Persson (guitar/drums, Riwen, Julie Christmas), Fredrik Kihlberg (guitar/vocals, Khoma), Kristian Karlsson (keyboards/vocals, pg.lost), Andreas Johansson (bass), and Thomas Hedlund (drums, Deportees) have signed with their own label, Red Creek.
We ease into the album with the title track In the Shadow of Your Shadow, which effortlessly transports us into the Swedish band’s heavy yet ethereal world, where hazy harmonics and massive screams emerge over a foundation that’s already thick and at times even slightly jagged – yet knows how to calm down and become reassuring. The vocals reappear, reigniting the fire as we move into Sadness Will Reign and its oppressive melancholy, which makes the track quite dark yet still intoxicating, before welcoming Joe Duplantier (Gojira) for an intense vocal duet. The track is, however, a bit short, as is Landby, which offers a gentle yet mysterious interlude that builds anticipation for Breach, a very long composition featuring riffs that are equally nebulous and veiled, allowing the vocals and piercing leads to shine through while captivating our minds as it ventures into the unknown. The sound follows its own shifting rhythm before finally transitioning into The Rift with its ethereal touches; it takes a while before the song really gets going and delivers a rawer, almost aggressive or at least energetic sound in the Post-Metal vein, though it never hesitates to slow down again before picking up the pace once more. We then move on to A Way Back, which features clean vocals over fairly simple, stripped-down riffs that resonate, and despite the addition of some percussion, the track remains fairly mellow, even becoming a full-fledged instrumental in the second half. The distortion returns with One More Day, which revisits the heavy approach but also features David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower) to diversify the vocal parts, adding a post-punk touch to the band’s slow, oppressive mix to weave together the tranquil passages of this lengthy track before transitioning – with one final burst of energy – to From Grey to Black, which takes off immediately. The sound is brutal, dry, and jagged, imposing a highly effective Sludge approach between fleeting moments of gentleness; then the album concludes with the initially calm and intoxicating Burial, the final track that grows denser over time, incorporating increasingly haunting beats, vocals, and that veil of harmonics that hovers freely, sometimes shifting shape but still guiding us toward the inevitable silence.
With the longest album of their career, Cult of Luna will undoubtedly turn off quite a few listeners, but those who have the courage to tackle In The Shadow Of Your Shadow will come away with ethereal sounds ringing in their ears.
90/100
