Vertikal

AlbumJan 29 / 20139 songs, 1h 5m 35s
Atmospheric Sludge Metal
Popular Highly Rated

According to a press release, "Vertikal" marks a much-anticipated return for the band after five years spent cultivating the ideas and directing the influences that have helped form a concept for the album. Distilled throughout are themes of machinery, repetition and clear, linear structures honed to the visual imagery of Fritz Lang's classic expressionist science fiction film "Metropolis".

6.8 / 10

An heir to both Neurosis' sprawling post-metal cycles and their persistent development as an ensemble, Sweden's Cult of Luna is as much a posse as a band. Their sixth album unveils remarkably progressive doom, putting the surly form in uncomfortable positions and often finding a payload.

5 / 10

On Vertikal, the sixth album from Cult of Luna, the Swedish band returns after a five-year gap with an album of rigidly structured and massively heavy post-metal.

8 / 10

The rub is that Cult of Luna do the 13-minute-song thing so well on their sixth album (which is about four hours long) it's scary, adding in a healthy dose of experimental electronics (wait, don't run away just yet), while tunes like "Synchronicity" have a wonderful and oddball key/guitar interplay.

9 / 10

CULT OF LUNA have a confession to make. Turns out the "true story" behind the Swedish group's most recent LP, 2008's "Eternal Kingdom" - something to do with a mad man's diary, filled with ramblings about a fantasy world, unexpectedly surfacing in their rehearsal space - was in fact entirely fabrica...

4.5 / 5

A review of Cult of Luna - Vertikal which is out from Indie Recordings on the 25th of January in Norway, Germany and Austria and the 29th everywhere else!

Cult of Luna’s Vertikal is a linear album, best appreciated from start to finish.

9 / 10