Cult Of Luna – The Long Road North | Album Review

There’s one theme that consistently comes up with Sweden’s post metal titans Cult Of Luna; quality. Since 2006’s Somewhere Along The Highway, they’ve carved themselves out a niche and scratched an itch nobody else has come close to. 2019’s A Dawn To Fear represented, in some ways, a big change for them as it was one of the first times they moved away from writing to explicit themes and instead seeing how things felt and just writing emotionally. The results speak for themselves; in a back catalogue full of highlights, it stood out as a towering achievement. Its successor, 2021’s The Raging River EP continued the unofficial trilogy and this year’s The Long Road North not only completes it, but surpasses all they’ve done before. 

‘Cold Burn’ is ushered in with Hans Zimmer-esque “BWAHMs” in typically grandiose fashion, before Thomas Hedlund lays down his signature drumming, progressive grooves that have provided the foundation for post metal’s finest for two decades. The loose-limbed, but never sloppy, drumwork feels tightly controlled and purposeful without ever being showy, and the melodic crescendo around the halfway mark carried by guitar and synth alike is truly stunning. Despite its ten minute runtime it flies by in what feels like half that; it’s utterly gripping in its majesty and splendour.

The rest of the album isn’t simply Cult Of Luna by numbers, either. While ‘The Silver Arc’ doubles down on the cinematic, but no less crushing heaviness, ‘Beyond I’ offers a surprising shift into minimalism. One of several guest features on the album (another Cult Of Luna staple), vocalist Mariam Walletin offers a soft, brooding counterpoint as she sings her lament over expansive synths. A completely instrumental, ambient interpretation of the song, titled simply ‘Beyond II’, closes the album and it too, is a collaborative effort. This time, though, it’s with Colin Stetson, who’s best known for the Hereditary (yes, that Hereditary) OST. 

That collaboration isn’t just limited to ‘Beyond II’; arguably the album’s centrepiece, ‘An Offering To The Wild’, was also crafted with his input. A twelve-plus minute opus, it’s a sprawling, but never languishing, piece that ebbs and flows before it builds to its towering conclusion. Arguably it’s in this and ‘Beyond I’ that The Long Road North ceases to be a great Cult Of Luna record and instead ascends to the very top of their discography, and the remainder of the album dedicates itself to cementing this argument. 

Take ‘Into The Night’; another left-field turn that features cleanly-sung vocals that have an airy quality to them. The juxtaposition of its serenity and the usual thunder of Cult Of Luna create a welcome detour that only further expands their already-significant sonic palette. ‘Full Moon’ then acts as an instrumental interlude before the title track and ‘Blood Upon Stone’, arguably one of the finest moments in an hour-plus record already stuffed full of them. Here, the band are joined by guitarists Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz of Phoenix, a French indie rock band for song that sounds apocalyptically huge. 

As fans will know, the band are masters of slow-building crescendos, shifting dynamics and majestic compositions all capped off by Johannes Persson’s now-iconic bellow. All these elements are present, dialled in precisely. Yet to call The Long Road North what we’ve come to expect from a Cult Of Luna album doesn’t do it justice. It’s a masterful album, one that ruminates on mental health and personal growth, examining a metaphysical long road north as much as it does the physical journey travelled by Persson on his move back to Umea. Simply put, The Long Road North is not just any Cult Of Luna album – which would be reason enough for celebration given their penchant for crafting brilliance – it’s the best album they’ve ever made.