### Cult Of Luna: Somewhere along the highway

#### 15/03/11 || Daemonomania

The most recent time I listened to this album was a pretty unique experience. Or maybe not. Fuck you. Mere weeks ago the atmospheric-post-metal-sludge sounds of “Somewhere” provided the ideal soundtrack for my wife to get a huge back tattoo. Mind you the whole thing took MUCH longer than the duration of one CD (we’re talking 8 plus 4 hour sessions), but no single album more accurately captured the big tatt experience of waxing between pain and numbness, beauty and blood. The inker, a big Down fan, had to admit it was the perfect set of tunes by which to practice his craft. Boom.

For the uninitiated, CoL(dub-ha) fits into the NeurIsis niche of sophisticated thinking man’s metal. Ground-pounding riffs from the depths combined with spacey interludes and keyboards and weird instruments and lyrics penned in the coffeeshop whilst gazing at enlightened women with pierced eyebrows reading about Marx. I can actually picture these skinny dudes in some Swedish chain (Brewensskorg? Cofehtrinkenssburg?) doing just that right now.

While I’ve heard a number of bands who do this style well, no single output from ‘em has captured my heart of steel quite like “Somewhere”. Not even the other stuff I’ve heard from CoL, in fact. Something intangible is at work, or maybe it’s just ace songwriting winning the day. Whatever the case, there’s a definite perception over the course of seven tracks that you’ve undertaken a trek across some primordial landscape and seen some cool shit on your way. I could mention which banjo riffs represent the twelve foot wingspan dragonflies and which hoarse vocal utterances embody the cheerful Plesiosaur pods, but that would be hella gay.

Buy it I say, and come along with me on this magickal quest. If you have even the slightest interest in anything beyond death/thrash (sorry IG), a rewarding listen will be yours. Scratch that. A wonderful disc you’ll come back to over and over again will be added to your collection. Giant back tattoo, Swedish coffee, and prehistoric fauna optional of course.

- Information
- Released: 2006
- Label: Earache
- Website: www.cultofluna.com
- Band
- Klas Rydberg: vocals
- Johannes Persson: guitars, vocals
- Erik Olofsson: guitars
- Fredrik Kihlberg: vocals, guitars
- Andreas Johansson: bass
- Anders Teglund: keyboards, samples
- Thomas Hedlund, Magnus Lindberg: drums and stuff

- Tracklist
- 01. Marching to the Heartbeats
- 02. Finland
- 03. Back to Chapel Town
- 04. And with Her Came the Birds
- 05. Thirtyfour
- 06. Dim
- 07. Dark City, Dead Man