Cult of Luna are a band who exist at the fringes of metal, their music more about emotion and experience, than a conscious attempt to align with any particular scene. As such, each album is an individual and highly subjective experience for the listener, emotionally charged and prone to change in character depending on the listener’s own mood and circumstances of the moment. Nevertheless, The Long Road North, the band’s ninth album, is a surprisingly vigorous and direct piece of work that seeks to grab the listener by the throat and hold them in place for the duration.
It opens with the astounding might of Cold Burn, a ferocious blast of post-metal that makes impressive use of subtle industrial elements to add further depth to the airy guitar motifs and pulverising rhythms on display. With a blistering production that seems to leap from the speakers, it’s a remarkable opening gambit that shakes the listener to their very core. Second track, The Silver Arc opens with a gruelling bass riff, only for the guitars to adopt a lighter mode, leaving plenty of space for Johannes Persson’s harrowing screams to hurtle straight through the middle of the piece. A dynamic piece that moves like quicksilver from feral assault to haunting refrain and back, The Silver Arc seeks out beauty at the heart of the storm, recalling the stunning vistas of Mariner in the process. Next up, the short Beyond I (feat. Mariam Wallentin) serves as an ambient bridge to the hulking An Offering to The Wild. With a voice reminiscent of Marianne Faithfull, Mariam brings real gravitas to the piece, only for the haunting noise to dissipate into the ether, cleansing the brutal opening tracks and paving the way for the band’s next steps.
At nearly thirteen-minutes in length, An Offering to The Wild is a true epic. It opens slowly, the band allowing a haze to build before the guitars return, muted, and restrained over hypnotic percussion. A slow building piece, it’s over five-minutes before the first vocal emerges to batter the listener against the jagged rocks of Thomas Hedland’s increasingly frantic percussion and even then, the track continues to pull in unexpected directions, flowing more like a mini-symphony than a traditional rock track. In contrast, Into the Night is roughly half the length, taking a more ethereal stance that sees the opening guitars swoop and glide beneath a haunted vocal that quavers with the intensity of its delivery. It is, quite simply, unutterably beautiful and it settles deep into the consciousness, all the more effective for the way the band keep it (just barely) on the leash. As such, the short, instrumental Full Moon feels more like a coda, drawing the middle portion of the album to a close in advance of the two truly massive pieces of music that take up the bulk of the album’s final third.
At ten minutes in length, the title track allows plenty of room for the band to explore the hinterland of post rock, all tribal percussion, and wordless vocals. Closer in form to the explorations of Saucerful-era Pink Floyd, it suddenly explodes into metallic life, only after having lulled the listener into a false sense of security. Buffeted by the riffs and submerged beneath churning drones, it is Johannes’ unearthly roar that provides a focal point, allowing you to keep your head above the torrent, but it’s a close-run thing. Having slowly collapsed into a folky postscript, The Long Road North passes the baton to the slower-paced Blood Upon Stone. Built around tribal percussion and with piano striking out in the darkness to inform the melody, it seemingly evolves into an angular and punishing piece of music, only to edge back into progressive territory once more. Such calm only serves to presage a new storm, however, and the track builds to a soaring finale that leaves the listener battered, yet strangely elated. Providing a coda to the record, Beyond II sees Cult of Luna reinterpreted by Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Hereditary OST). It’s a suitably cinematic piece, providing closure to the album and once again cementing Cult of Luna’s place as one of the most forward-thinking and daring bands currently treading the boards.
Cult of Luna albums are so unique that each listener may bring their own understanding as to what influences may have been present, without ever truly pinning down the band’s sound. They are something truly special, a collective whose focus is entirely on creating a living, breathing form of art that transports the listener to different worlds with each and every listen. As such, no Cult of Luna album ever seems to eclipse another but, rather, they stand side by side – a body of work that is largely incomparable. Thus, while The Long Road North would be a masterpiece by any other band, for Cult of Luna it is simply another part of the remarkable sonic tapestry they have spent their entire career weaving, and (as should by now be obvious), it is utterly essential listening. 10/10
