Cult of Luna (SE) Cult of Luna (SE)

For nearly 30 years Swedish sonic titans Cult Of Luna have been at the forefront of the post-metal scene, releasing classic record after classic record, and bringing their epic sound to the farthest corners of the globe, and they are often credited to having invented the whole genre with the help of other cult bands such as ISIS and Neurosis.

Often composed around a central overarching theme, Cult Of Luna’s albums are at once uniquely enthralling and part of a bigger, even more captivating whole, extending the band’s reach and strengthening its grip with each dissonant note. 

Released in two adjoining parts over 2013, the ‘Vertikal’ saga saw the band explore mankind’s ever-growing reliance on technology and “the machine” in a winding monolithic oeuvre that cemented the band’s legacy as one of today’s more poignant commentators and vicious critics. In parallel, the album served as a new score to Fritz Lang’s cult classic “Metropolis”, which explored themes of technologic and economic alienation that today, almost 100 years later, sounds scaringly accurate. 

‘Mariner’, their 2016 collaborative effort with all-around music genius Julie Christmas, is one of the best records of the last decade. Met with universal acclaim, Mariner scored a dystopian voyage into the Universe’s deep core, where the light of the sun, and mankind’s common sense are remnants of a distant past. The band sounded the bell on how technological progress, when left unchecked, can distort and confuse means and ends, and the horrors that can hide behind this seemingly positivist mindset. 

Disconnection between machine and operator and the feeble horrors of cognitive dissonance were also explored on the band’s following album, ‘A Dawn To Fear’; a sprawling masterpiece of 80 minutes of playing time, an undertaking of colossal proportions that thrills and shocks, crushes and comforts under the weight of tracks so gloriously epic they have become a high watermark of post-metal excellence. 

The band’s latest album ‘The Long Road North’ was their most visceral in ages, and perfectly scored a real journey up north in the forgotten Swedish tundra where frosted snow and a freezing sun are your sole companions, and whipping winds do not forget to slap you in the face every time you put your chin up. 

Their undoubtedly phenomenal show will be both the perfect backdrop and a major highlight of the 20th anniversary edition of dunk! festival and once again, an epic soundtrack and a unifying force which should remind us all that through music everyone connects and everything heals.