Cult Of Luna: Seeking True North
For anyone with even a passing familiarity with post-metal, CULT OF LUNA need no introduction. For the past twenty-plus years, they’ve refined and expanded on their own unique sound, from the claustrophobic Vertikal to the much more expansive and emotional A Dawn To Fear and last year’s The Raging River EP. With their ninth album The Long Road North looming, we spoke to frontman and guitarist Johannes Persson to talk about maturing as creatives, collaboration and their longevity as a band.
The first thing that’s apparent is just how measured he is in his responses; something that’s borne out in their music, in its gradual builds, careful dynamics and the ebbing, flowing nature of a CULT OF LUNA album. The upcoming The Long Road North, similar to last year’s EP, represents something of a shift in how the band were able to prepare for and write their latest work.
“We used to do our work individually, and then we meet up for a weekend here and there. And we’d practice eight to ten hours a day, which is not that productive,” he explains of how things worked prior to him relocating back to his hometown of Umea. “Now we could meet up on a weekday, practice for one and a half hours, write for one and a half hours, then we just split up and meet next weekend. The process is a bit more organic.” It made the eventual recording of what became The Long Road North easier in some ways, but Persson points out that it certainly wasn’t their easiest. “It’s probably one of the least interesting records we’ve had in a while,” he begins, “[when we recorded] A Dawn To Fear, we went to the Ocean Sound Studio in Norway and the only thing we did for ten days was just focus on the recording. But [this time] I don’t think we were all in the studio at the same time in any point of the recording.” He does take pains to point out though, that there’s no cracks in the end result; despite not being able to bounce ideas off each other as they would’ve liked, there are no cracks to be found.
Arguably, CULT OF LUNA are having something of a creative explosion at the moment, and they’d be the first to agree. “I don’t know what spawned it, that we’ve experienced for a couple of years now. It might be that we let go of the typical boundaries that we have when we write these thematical records,” he suggests, referring to albums like Vertikal, which was heavily inspired by the 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis. That decision to move away from writing to set themes and instead embrace writing from instinct and emotion has served them well, but it’s not the easiest thing for them. “I still like the thematical process of writing, because putting limits on yourself and your creativity forces you to make decisions you wouldn’t have done otherwise. But I think it’s this kind of freer way of writing that has really kept us going.”
That’s not to say there’s necessarily a clear distinction between each album or era of CULT OF LUNA; while many would see the band’s albums as snapshots in time, that isn’t necessarily the case for them. “When we went to Norway and recorded what would become A Dawn To Fear, we had a lot more music recorded. Some of it was just not holding up to whatever standard we have, but some of the songs later ended up on The Raging River.”
It’s not unheard of for them to shelve ideas then, and revisit them again or to flesh them out later when they feel that the songs have developed enough and are of a standard, or of a particular sound that they would fit into a body of work. Specifically, the title track from the new album may have wound up on A Dawn To Fear, but didn’t for a number of reasons. “The lyrics that I wrote [for the song] were a freeze frame of where I was mentally, many years ago, where I’m not any more. So in a sense, it’s moving backwards and trying to figure out where you belong, where I felt home.” That home has a double meaning; not just his move back to Umea – a literal long road north from where he had been for many years – but also being in a stable place, mentally. “One thing that we did with my family last year is, we did this inland road trip in the north of Sweden. I revisited places where my dad took me when I was a kid. It was such an amazing thing to revisit these places that I had memories of and then try to use the medium I have, which is the guitar and words, to paint the picture of these places.”
In some ways, The Long Road North is a homecoming; partly literal with Persson returning to Umea. In other ways, it’s also the band continuing their search and push to progress their sound. It’s the sound of seeking out a home, both musically and mentally, as the band and its members continue to refine what it means to not only be CULT OF LUNA, but what it means to be, full stop. One thing is certain; they’re still the masters of post-metal.
The Long Road North is out now via Metal Blade Records.
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