CULT OF LUNA — Salvation (review)

CULT OF LUNA — Salvation album cover Album · 2004 · Atmospheric Sludge Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Phonebook Eater
8/10

Tides Of Distortion, Waves Of Emotion.

The first two albums from Cult Of Luna were interesting and promising, but missing of sophistication, maturity, and overall replay value. Many Metal bands start with releases of this sort, even the great bands. Cult Of Luna as a matter of fact might just be one of these bands; in 2004, only a year after their sophomore album, “Salvation” hits the metal community like a thunderbolt.

Like many Sludge Metal bands, the Swedish decided to fill their music with shades of Post-Rock and mixing them with their basic Sludge roots, resulting in a music that has been labeled by some Post-Metal, with acts such as Isis and Neurosis being principal pioneers. Cult Of Luna’s music now is distinct and unique, despite not being particularly innovating. The length of the songs has stretched, the recording is clean and generous to details, but not clean enough to ruin the body-crushing riffs that domain most of this album. The songwriting here is the massive improvement, as songs such as the opening track “Echoes” clearly proves, an eleven minute monster that for the first five minutes beautifully builds up to an eventual climax. It’s a perfect summary of what the remaining hour of the album has to offer, which is a complex pattern of Post-Rockish crescendos and bursts of crunchy riffage, occasionally veiled by bold electronic sounds to further enrich the music.

Other noteworthy songs include the towering, eleven-minute, rhythm-heavy “Vague Illusions”, The long build ups of “Waiting For You” and “Crossing Over”, and the shorter, to-the-point catchy and heavy songs like “White Cell” and “Leave Me Here”. Then there’s “Into the Beyond”, the final settlement, one of the best moments Cult Of Luna has ever accomplished, full of ups and downs and emotional swings.

“Salvation” doesn’t deny its influences from bands like Isis, but its sound is fresh enough and its level of musicianship is high enough for it to be generally considered to be one of the most successful, complex, and elaborate Sludge Metal albums ever released. Also, the fact that Cult Of Luna still today have other great things to say makes them one of the best Sludge Metal acts.
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