Tag: Metal Blade Records

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Sweden’s Cult of Luna Releases a Dreamy and Yearning New Single

Acclaimed and prolific Umeå, Sweden-based post-metal outfit Cult of Luna — currently, Johannes Persson (guitar, vocals), Andreas Johansson (bass), Thomas Hedlund (drums, percussion), Fredrik Kihlberg (guitar, vocals), Krisitian Karlsson (keys, vocals) and Magus Lindberg (production) — formed back in 1998 and can trace their origins to the breakup of a local hardcore punk band by the name of Eclipse. The Swedish band’s first two albums — 2001’s self titled debut and 2003’s The Beyond — slowly gained attention in underground circles and among the press.

Beginning with their breakthrough, third album 2004’s Salvation, the members of Cult of Luna, released a string of critically applauded albums that included 2006’s Somewhere Along The Highway, 2008’s Eternal Kingdom and 2013’s Vertikal. The band capped off a busy year, which included extensive European touring and the release of the Vertikal II EP, a companion effort that featured three songs recorded during the Vertikal sessions and dropped from the album and a remix of album single “Vicarious Redemption” by Justin Broadrick.

Shortly after the release of the Vertikal II EP, the band went on hiatus. Although they didn’t publicly announce it until 2016, during the recording sessions and tours to support Vertikal, the band went through two major lineup changes: The band’s original keyboardist Anders Teglund left the band during the Vertikal sessions and was replaced by the pg.lost’s Krisitian Karlsson. Founding member Erik Olofsson (guitar) left the band after their Beyond the Redshift Festival appearance in 2014. Olofsson was released by Kongh‘s David Johansson.

2016 saw the release of the Swedish post-metal outfit Mariner, an effort that found the band collaborating with Made Out of Babies‘ and Battle of Mice‘s Julie Christmas. While Vertikal thematically was city and industrial-based, Mariner, explored themes related to outer space and space travel.

Before the release of Mariner, the members of the Swedish post-metal outfit had begun writing material for what would be their eighth album. The end result was 2019’s critically applauded A Dawn to Fear an album that landed on Loudwires’ 50 Best metal albums of that year.

Over the course of their two decade run, Cult of Luna’s sound has moved from being heavily doom metal-influenced to a sound centered around lush orchestration — and more towards post-metal, progressive metal and even sludge metal. Sonically, they’re best known for crafting long. slow-burning songs featuring crushingly heavy and distorted guitar-driven sections, interspersed with with orchestral interludes and extended post-rock-like forays.

They’ve long eschewed conventional song structures, opting for a sound that tends to evolve throghout a song, sometimes towards a climatic crescendo, instead of say, a verse-chorus-verse pattern. And as a result, their work has been compared to Isis, Callisto, Pelican and even Neurosis.

Slated for a February 11, 2022 release through Metal Blade Records, Cult of Luna’s ninth album The Long Road North continues a run of material centered around shifting dynamics and sonic density — but perhaps even more so with The Long Road, an effort that featured guest spots from composer Colin Stetson, Pheonix‘s Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz and Wildbirds And Peacedrums’ Mariam Wallentin. “It’s a big and cinematic sounding album,.” Cult of Luna’s Johannes Persson says in press notes. “I think one of the reasons why we have been able to be so productive the last couple of years is that we have been consistently writing from the heart. We have let our instincts guide us, and I think it’s getting clearer where we are heading.”

“The long road north is a long road home. A direction dictated by a call that penetrates rock and echoes through the forest,” Persson continues. “It flows over every lake, accelerated by the wind. When it reaches you, you know it’s time. Time to move forward. You don’t know where it will lead but you put the trust in it. With eyes raised towards the midnight sun it pulls you closer. The road is long and the end is uncertain.”

Clocking in at a little under seven minutes The Long Road‘s latest single “Into the Night” is a slow-burning and dreamy song that begins with a lengthy strummed, reverb-drenched guitar and vocal-based introduction before the addition of glistening keys that lead into an extended shoegazer-like section with swirling guitars and thunderous drumming before ending with howling feedback. The seemingly disparate yet hauntingly gorgeous parts are held together by Frederik Kihlberg’s plaintive yet sonorous baritone, which kind of sounds a bit like JOVM mainstay Mark Lanegan to me. But at it’s core is the yearning and desperate search for something — or someone — that’s been lost, perhaps forever.

“‘Into the Night’ is about the search for something or someone that’s been lost. It’s about being in the state between conscious and unconscious, awake and dreaming,” the band’s Frederik Kihlberg explains. “Seeing, hearing and experiencing things and not knowing if it’s real or imagination.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mother Feather’s Ass-Kicking Death Match Visuals for “Red Hot Metal”

Comprised of Ann Courtney (vocals), Elizabeth Carena (vocals, keys), Chris Foley (guitar), Gunnar Olsen (drums), and the band’s newest member Seth Ondracek (bass), the Brooklyn-based rock/heavy metal act Mother Feather quickly emerged into the national spotlight with their 2016 self-titled, full-length debut. The Brooklyn-based metal quartet played 41 dates of that year’s Warped Tour, went on a series of sold-out UK dates, which featured a live session for BBC Radio 1 Rock Show, played sets at Rock On The Range and Carolina Rebellion — and they opened for The B52s.

Building upon a growing national and international profile, the Brooklyn-based metal quintet’s sophomore album Constellation Baby will be officially released on Friday through Metal Blade Records and Black Light Media. And interestingly enough, the album finds the band expanding upon their high-energy “pop cock rock” in an ambitious, kicking ass and taking names fashion while retaining the raw, playful and feminine energy that won them attention. Of course, upping the ante isn’t a small feat. As the band’s Ann Courtney says of the album and its writing sessions “All I knew was that I needed the new album to be awesome. ‘Mother Feather’ is such an empowered album, and when I began working on the new material, I was really struggling to feel that way. I knew this album needed to be even better than the first, and to capitalize on its momentum it had to happen quickly. It was a tremendous amount of pressure to put myself under, and it was a dragon I knew I wanted to slay alone – at least at the beginning.” So Courtney locked herself away to write, to face her depression and stare down some deeply uncomfortable feelings. “Truthfully, I went to some very dark and lonely places. But once I let myself go there, that’s when the album started to take shape. There’s a lot of fever and intimacy in those songs. I laid myself bare.”

With her bandmates assisting Courtney to fully-flesh out and realize the album’s material, the end result is reportedly a collection that’s cathartic and exuberant. We are diving way deeper into the question, ‘Who is Mother Feather?'” Courtney says, “and I think that the answer is extremely emotional. It’s eclectic, but it all sounds like Mother Feather. This album will definitely expand what that means.” Adds Courtney, “It definitely wasn’t a given that things would come together though. It was hard won, even back to the writing. Everyone in the band went way out of their way to make it happen because we wanted it to happen. Everyone had something to say. Ideas were pushed to the limit and the result is the collective combination of those forces of energy. We were extremely vigilant about working through ideas. Stuff got worked, and it got worked again. In spite of the challenges — personal, financial, artistic — we all tried really hard to work together and create the thing that everyone meant, collectively.”

Album single “Red Hot Metal” is centered around power chord-based riffs, thunderous drumming, enormous, raise-your -beer-to the-sky-and-shout-along, arena rock-friendly hook sand pop belter harmonies delivered by Courtney and Carena. Sonically, the song recalls Heart, Lita Ford and 80s hair metal, complete with the swaggering confidence of old pros, whose songs have a bigger purpose. 

Directed by Michael Thackray, the recently released video for “Red Hot Metal”  stars wrestlers Maria Manic and Matt “The Bulldozer” Tremont grappling in a sweaty and bloody death match. For a significant portion of the match, Manic looks as though she’ll lose — until she gets help from the members of Mother Feather. 

The Brooklyn-based metal quintet is playing a record release show later tonight at The Knitting Factory and it looks like it’ll be a helluva time. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mother Feather Releases an Arena Rock Friendly Ripper

Comprised of founding and primary duo Ann Courtney and Lizzie Carena, along with Chris Foley and Gunnar Olsen, the New York-based rock act Mother Feather formed back in 2010 and since their formation they’ve developed a reputation for swaggering and epic songs that some have said invoke Marc Bolan, David Bowie and To Bring To You My Love-era PJ Harvey. And while that can debated, the band’s sophomore album Constellation Baby is slated for a November 11, 2018 release through Metal Blade Records/Blacklight Media, and the album’s second and latest single “Snakebite” will further the act’s growing reputation for crafting anthemic, arena rock centered around enormous power chords, thundering drumming and Ann Courtney’s powerhouse vocals.  Interestingly, the track manages to simultaneously nod at 80s hair metal and classic rock, complete with a coked-up, balls to the wall swagger. 

As the band’s Ann Courtney explains of the song, “‘An homage to the evil impulse and the speed of its ambush, I wrote ‘Snakebite’ in a hot 20 minutes. With its production setting it in the cinematic imagination of an 80s punk cult-film, this is the riotous theme song for your psycho ex-girlfriend with an axe to grind.”