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Cult Of Luna - Somewhere Along the Highway CD (album) cover

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE HIGHWAY

Cult Of Luna

 

Experimental/Post Metal

4.18 | 175 ratings

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Dim
Prog Reviewer
5 stars I feel this Swedish post metal band is highly unappreciated on the archives. I know there is a lot of Cult fans here, but sadly, few of them choose to review, letting great bands like this one slip away to the bottom of the barrel. Anyways somewhere along the highway is, so far, my favorite cult album out of the two I have (*edit three*), the other being salvation. The magic behind this band is, when you look past the robotic guitars, and Isis-like drumming, there is an entire different band, consisting of keyboards, synths, and percussion that are holding up the cornerstone of this music. There are only a few instances where the key's are notable, and frontal enough to be considered lead, but when they show up to this degree, it seriously boosts the quality of the music, and this should be a trend the band should definitely get into.

The first song on the album blows all opinions away of cult of Luna having no emotion. Marching to the heartbeats is so heartfelt, with the vocals barely holding the note while a beautiful lead line hovers over it, and after it. This song is nearly tear jerking, and my favorite on the album (*edit, now DIM*), clocking in barely longer than three minutes, this is THE song to define the softer side of post metal. The rest of the album follows the usual COL style, throbbing drums and angular chord progressions take the reigns while the growls thunder away, creating a massive wall of sound. At first glance you have to ask yourself, how can this be progressive, but then the band go's into an Opeth like drop out where a sweet undistorted lead lines pecks through atmospheric processing. This will build up into a thunderous climax where Cult of Luna accomplishes what the greats of all post metal seem to love: build into a swirling torrent of sound, where the guitars are down stroking away, while the everything else is spiraling around them, spawning a hurricane of power and progression. Now, this isn't the trend of the entire album, there are some songs dominated by tremolo guitar, and atmospheric keyboards, with little drumming or riffing. And with her came the birds, is completely non distorted, clean vocals, and even has a banjo carrying olde time creepy arpeggios, to keep a melancholic COL mood.

This section of my review is an edit about 4 months later than my original. WOW, I literally said in my old review that this album is no masterpiece, you have no idea how stupid I feel about that. This is an album that I have "binges" with, where I pump it up, and then stays in constant rotation for about a week, everything about it is so beautiful, it's one of those albums that just clicks with you, and you literally feel all the emotion carried out, whether it's the last minutes of Finland, or the gorgeous mid section of Dim (which is now my undisputable favorite CoL song) everything is near perfect. This album is my second favorite metal album (if not album period) made behind Maudlin of the wells Bath.

I recommend anybody into soulful and passionate music, and ready for a challenge Somewhere along the highway. To me it just may be perfect.

5 stars

Dim | 5/5 |

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