Review by Sonny for Cult of Luna - The Long Road North (2022)

Sonny / February 13, 2022 / 0

I know I am supposed to bow down in obeisance and offer up my eternal gratitude that Cult of Luna have deigned to provide us with yet more proof of their superiority to us lesser beings in the form of their latest release. But, in all honesty, I just feel a bit... cheated.

I came late to the CoL party, only getting into them since joining Metal Academy and hearing that nearly everyone rated them very highly indeed. And, yes, they are a fantastic band and yes, The Long Road North sounds great. Yet somehow it has still left me feeling strangely empty. The reason why is that it sounds exactly how I expected it to. It is performed, written and produced to a ridiculously high standard, as is everything I've heard from the band and therein lies the problem. It feels like their music, despite being amazing, is so formulaic that you could remove all the covers from your CoL albums and just leave them on the shelf with Cult of Luna written on each in marker pen and it wouldn't matter which one you pulled out and put on the turntable as the experience would be the same.

I understand it sounds ridiculous to say that an album sounds great and then slag it off and I probably sound like a giant arsehole, but I genuinely feel disappointed in The Long Road North. I feel like I've pulled back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and got wise to his trickery. I could, without feeling any sense of internal conflict, rate this album anywhere from 3.5 (any less would be churlish) to 5.0.

Reviewing it musically, I could go "blah, blah, blah slow build up... blah, soaring crescendo... blah, superb musicianship... blah, blah tight composition" but I can't be arsed if truth be told. For me, I think how highly I regard Cult of Luna albums will be in the order in which I heard them as I get a diminished return from each one, so Somewhere Along the Highway will probably always remain my favourite and possibly the only Cult of Luna album I will ever need.

If you don't share my misgivings then I would say, yes definitely go out and get this album because it IS indeed a very good one and you will love it.

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Comments (1)

Xephyr / February 14, 2022

This is actually a spot-on analysis at the end of the day. Cult of Luna have been consistently good for so long that eventually the winning formula is going to become stale in its own way. A Dawn To Fear was the album that pushed CoL into one of my top bands, so I've been loving The Long Road North because while it gave me exactly what I was expecting, it's also exactly what I wanted. I think that Somewhere Along The Highway is a step down in quality for them personally, so their newer material has resonated with me much harder than people who regard their older stuff (or Mariner for that matter) as their best. I'll probably still end up writing a review saying mostly the same stuff as I would for A Dawn To Fear, as the two albums are admittedly extremely similar, but I definitely agree with the disappointment sentiment. While I wanted more than what The Long Road North is, I'm still absolutely loving what we got.