SALVATION

One of my favorite bands on the planet made a big splash with this album in the metal underground. Cult of Luna was an experimental post hardcore band that decided to pick up some post rock tendencies after their album The Beyond. They go on to make this gem salvation, filled with more than just the three guitar sludgy riffing, but with clean delayed harmonies, mellower song structures, and even sparse clean vocals. With this album, Cult of Luna defined a new kind of post metal, different from anything Isis, Pelican, or Neurosis had offered: More in depth concepts, darker themes, and emotion evoking music.

The only flaw that I can find in this album are the openers. Echoes and vague Illusions are both representative of their old post hardcore style with very few soft sections or guitar leads, but mostly straight up metal madness topped with Klas' extreme guttural voice. If you've read any of my reviews you probably know that what I consider a good album is all about the flow, if the album jut doesnt mingle right it's flawed, and that's how I feel about these two songs being right next to each other at the beginning of the album, they should at least be spaced out, or should have some toned down moments in order to keep a good flow going. Other than that, one of the greatest in the CoL catalogue comes up: Leave me hear, a song that was actually semi big to underground metal heads, starting with a very driving edge, and just gets heavier and heavier, while the vocals get angrier and angrier then all the sudden brake to a clean Post rocky guitar lead with some clean vocals. The song even drops more to just the guitar, making you feel floating and wait less, beautiful! This to me is one of the best ways to transfer emotion through music, and this song takes the cake for one of the finest examples.

After Leave me hear, this is where I consider the album to be halfway done, this is where the band gives me a sense of walking in an ally at night, and the darkness and coldness with it. An atmosphere belongs to this album, and this album only, kind of like the atmosphere of walking along a dark road on somewhere along the highway. Anyways, the next couple of songs just flow seamlessly, the highlights being Waiting for you, and Crossing over, with a beautiful clean vocal display by Johannes. The album ends on the epic Into the beyond, but like every Cult of Luna closer, I feel it really fails to give that last push of intensity appropriate to end such an awesome album deserves.

Well, this one is no Somewhere along the highway, but I guess that's an unfair comparison, given the SAtH is one of the greatest metal albums in existence. Anyways I feel Salvation is much darker, and colder in comparison to the more atmospheric and post rocky SAtH. Definitely more brutal, and tends to shy away from the more prettier side of their music (though a much better attempt than in Eternal Kingdom... whoops...), which is definitely a con. So Four stars for Salvation.