Cult Of Luna and Julie Christmas

as a terrible girlie voice sprang from Chevron, in company of a thick, luxuriant bass introduction, the frog’s brow gave a disdainful pout and for one moment, i asked myself what had bitten Cult Of Luna. it is true that the frog is a relatively newcomer to the band’s music. even so, it will never forget the very day when, with both fear and incommensurable delight, it discovered their substantial album Vertikal, released in 2013. and how Vicarious Redemption entered its 20 all-time favourites. the dramaturgy enrolled by Cult of Luna in this song was (and still is) absolutely majestic and placed the electrifying post-metal band formed in 1998 in umeå, sweden, above average.

funded by Johannes Persson (vocals, guitar), the band consists presently of Thomas Hedlund and Magnus Lindberg on drums, Fredrik Kihlberg (guitar, vocals) and Andreas Johansson (bass). the recent arrival of Kristian Karlsson (of pg.lost) as new keyboardist didn’t cast a shadow on the band’s magnificence, quite the opposite.

during their writing process, Cult of Luna endeavour to produce genuine conceptual LPs, following the example of Vertikal, which was inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and mostly focused on the future alienation of the city anticipated in the film.

in their seventh, highly expected, album Mariner released in april on indie recordings, Cult Of Luna designed a cosmos odyssey through an Einstein–Rosen bridge, a journey between our planet and some other galaxy, in a different spacetime. on this occasion, the band decided to pair with Julie Christmas, former lead singer of post-metal, sludge bands Made Out of Babies and Battle of Mice. CoL made a interesting choice to request vocal reinforcements, especially because the band usually provides its own vocal score, which celebrates one the most beautifully lugubrious voices that the frog had the chance to luxuriate in.

luckily, in Chevron, the latest track unveiled by the band, this very voice – made of Johannes Persson’s profound and vociferating growls – doesn’t take too long to rejoin Christmas, and Christmas’ innocent voice, in turn, reunites con brio with Persson’s cries of rage. the little girl has now turned into an accomplished roaring lady. the frog can eventually relax its frozen cervical and let its body thrill to the sound of Persson’s delicious vibratos, served by his delicious female sibling.

the melancholy commonly dear to both Cult Of Luna and your servitor is very present in A Greater Call, the first single released by the band in late february. a few long instrumental minutes open the song that contains exactly the level of spleen and contagious fury required to let your mind dissipate in a fictional, sheltered spacetime. Johannes Persson gives a proper echo to the blazing guitars, seething with anger. but, what a pity that Julie Christmas’ voice remains slightly in the background, comparable to some secondary radio frequencies, interfering on various layers and weakening the chaos of great intensity conveyed by the instruments.

in The Wreck Of S.S Needle, on the contrary, her supposedly childish voice embraces quickly devilish tonalities that rapidly change into the expression of a possessed, frightening sorceress that would surely take great pleasure in metamorphosing you into an ugly, rotten creature. when her voice vanishes once in a while to let Cult Of Luna climb up an imaginary dreadful mountain, the landscape becomes suddenly expressionless and desolated.

what a bewitching song, my goodness. this idea of collaboration is astoundingly refreshing, and the above three singles give evidence that a genuine feminine beauty can adorn CoL’s music. Mariner appears to be, again, a remarkable coup de maître. this new wonder is precisely available here.