Astral Noize

There are few certainties in life but the ones that are there, you could bet your house on. The sun will of course rise in the morning, the tides will ebb and flow and when Swedish post metal veterans Cult of Luna release a new album it will be an album of the year contender.

Indeed, it’s getting harder to actually review a new Cult Of Luna album because in their twenty plus years of creating music they have never delivered a mediocre album, let alone a bad one. They are constantly pushing and stretching themselves both in musicianship and song craft, solidifying themselves as titans of heavy music, so much so that it’s becoming very difficult to imagine them ever putting a foot wrong. They create swirling, otherworldly soundscapes that are both ethereally beautiful and spine crushingly heavy. One imagines these sounds, both live and on record, comes somewhere close to the sensation of space travel.

A Dawn To Fear is a momentous work with eight songs stretching just under an hour and a half. It is in no way an easy listen, rather an immersive experience that you have to give the full time and attention it deserves. For sound comparisons, A Dawn To Fear sits in the cross over mark of the continuous, relentless mechanised nightmare vibe of Vertikal and the more organic, earthly and haunting sounds of Eternal kingdom.  From the opening on-rushing whitewater riff of ‘The Silent Man’ to the skin crawling sense of impending doom on ‘Lights On The Hill’, Cult Of Luna have created a dense, multifaceted gem of an album. Every moment on A Dawn To Fear proves time and again just why they are considered true masters of their craft.

The album closes with the track ‘The Fall’. Should you be introducing someone new to Cult of Luna then start with this track, because out of their entire prestigious back catalogue ‘The Fall’ is possibly the best song they have ever written. It is a standout track in what is truly a magnificent beast of an album. For this writer, A Dawn To Fear is front runner for album of the year and 2019 will have to pull something truly spectacular out of the bag to surpass it. 

A Dawn To Fear is out 20th September via Metal Blade and can be purchased here.

Words: Nathan Tyler