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Rating:
2004 will be remembered, when critics and music criticism enthusiasts realize it, as the year in which Post Hardcore—an admittedly insufficient term—reached excellent artistic levels on multiple fronts. This was thanks to the coinciding release of some of the scene's most anticipated albums into the music market, serving as a not-yet-definitive synthesis of different paths undertaken from extremely diverse artistic and geographical positions.
From Sweden come the Cult Of Luna, now reaching the third installment of their saga, authors of "Salvation," a work that's been relatively discussed and certainly worthy of attention, especially by those who in recent months have appreciated the new albums from Isis, Mastodon, Neurosis.
"Salvation" is an album that doesn’t forgo the band’s heavy style, but delves deeper into the quest for a sometimes psychedelic sound, devoid of the samples and walls of sound used in the previous "The Beyond," but capable of creating introspective atmospheres directly attributable to the deviant constructions of Steve Von Till's band, without forgetting the lessons of the seminal Swans.
In the interplay between fullness and emptiness, expansive environments follow devastating seismic charges led by Klas Rydberg's invectives, as in Leave Me Here, a flagship track of a compact and unsettling album to which the score of 4/5 feels restrictive and indeed cries for vindication. Tribal percussion, electroacoustic fragments, powerful distortions, and sudden successions to low and disorienting frequencies are the seasoning of the eight tracks on this album.
The stunning effect, probably due to the contrast between typically metal instrumentation and the almost slow-motion scenes of a piece like Crossing Over, besides bringing us back to the aforementioned names, stimulates reflection on a genre now definable as "Ambient Metal".
Comparison with the group's previous chapters is not essential: the Cult of Luna keeps pace with the other great artists who, once again in 2004, have released indispensable and illuminating works for the future of a genre that perhaps still has much to explore around itself, and which, although relatively few have noticed, is alive today, and today is when it should be experienced.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
03 Leave Me Here (07:15)
Out of a secret longing
They know their way from here
Out of a growing dream
They follow the road we create
I see what I've cut behind me
Lost on the bottom you often found me there
False conscience is beyond me
Lost in the backwoods I lie open to you here
Just leave me here
These men are running hard
But you keep down your voices
Living only to judge heavy
All mysteries aside there was a truth outside
Leave me here and I'm born again
Leave me here in this void again
Now I am open left for dead
Just like salvation comes in the end
04 Waiting for You (10:47)
I am praying for the raging flood
I am waiting for you to come
05 Adrift (07:17)
In his arms, locked in that iron grip nothing will reveal
Follow these footsteps and we will reach the bottom
I tumbled down the road that bears his name
Here he dwells, here he prospers and pushes us towards the end
When we are drifting against the tide
Colliding with the very air we breathe
Somewhere the tracks inwards must lead out
A grasp of hope that defeats the will
Always pushed away
Always nothing
07 Crossing Over (08:32)
Traces in snow
A red line grows through and leads me below
Nothing on this side ties me
One step, one glimpse of an eye
One moment can change everything
Wait here 'til my words spread across the sky
And into the chambers of every soul
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