Cult of Luna is a Swedish heavy metal band from Umeå founded in 1998 and have released five albums in their first ten years. After an extended period of inactivity, they returned with the highly acclaimed Vertikal (2013). In 2016, the band released Mariner in collaboration with Julie Christmas.
Now they are finally back with an album on their own. The opener and 11-min single "The Silent Man" displays from the get-go the heaviness, emotive and melancholic nature of their sound. The guitar tone is very distinctive displaying a different sort of dirty distortion. The song dives into an instrumental interlude in slower tempo full of guitars with reverb and subtle organ on the background reminding me of Pink Floyd's "Echos". But then a crescendo lead us back to the last verse. This alternation between heavy guitars with screams and melancholic post-rock 70's prog-ish is a constant artistic choice throughout the record. The title track brings home this message of a very post-rock and old school prog feeling. In contrast "Lay Your Head to Rest" opens up with a big epic sound that develops into a nice groovy song with an emotive verse, specially when Persson screams the song title. A nice detail is the last 30 seconds of organ to close things off. The third single is the longest song "Lights on the Hill" which goes beyond 15 minutes and it's another highlight despite being 5-ish minutes too long.
A Dawn to Fear is tough nut to crack, clocking in at 80 minutes, the 8 tracks are long, mostly slow depressing tempo and yet heavy. With that said, be sure that there are no bad songs here. However, it would've been nice if the band had managed to trim some songs so that we would not exceed the one hour mark. I like the production values and the musicianship overall. The harsh singing is crushingly emotive, the drumming has brilliant moments (e.g. "Nightwalkers"), the bass is clear int he mix and the use of organs in some post-rock sections bringing this 70's prog feel. Heavy sections of distorted guitars mingled with post-rock sections featuring organs and other acoustic instruments, often containing a climactic (slow) crescendo. As always, Cult Of Luna are inventive and avoid conventional song structures.
Overall A Dawn to Fear is a huge accomplishing from the band following Vertikal. They prove themselves as a leading band within their genre. The result is an artistic musical journey difficult to digest but quite rewarding once you get your head around it. It's the perfect soundtrack as we enter the cold and dark season.
SCORE: 81/100
DR: 7
Genre: Post-Metal
Released by Metal Blade Records on September 20th, 2019
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