Cult Of Luna – In The Shadow Of Your Shadow (Metal Blade Records)There are bands that write heavy riffs, and then there are bands that construct entire weather systems. For over a quarter of a century, Sweden’s Cult Of Luna have stood as undisputed titans of post-metal, transforming crushing atmospheric sludge from an abrasive niche into an expansive, cinematic art form.
Following on from the monolithic triumphs of 2019’s A Dawn To Fear and 2022’s The Long Road North, their ninth full-length studio outing, In The Shadow Of Your Shadow, arrives with the imposing gravity of a glacier grinding down a mountainside. It is an immense, nine-track voyage that explores the suffocating weight of grief, isolation, and psychological fracture, delivered with the terrifying authority only Cult Of Luna can command.
What has always set the Umeå collective apart is their mastery of tectonic pacing. In the hands of lesser acts, long-form post-metal compositions can easily devolve into sluggish repetition. Here, Johannes Persson and company understand that silence and low-frequency murmur are just as lethal as maximum volume. The record opens with the sprawling ten-minute title track, In The Shadow Of Your Shadow, which creeps into view on eerie, ambient synthesizer pulses and fragile guitar arpeggios before the tidal wave breaks.
When the full ensemble drops, anchored by the cavernous dual-drum battery of Thomas Hedlund and Christian Augustin, the low-end pressure feels physical enough to rearrange your internal organs. Persson’s throat-tearing roars sound as raw, impassioned, and feral as they did twenty years ago, bellowing out into a frozen, indifferent void.
The album wastes no time delivering its first major gut-punch with Sadness Will Reign, featuring Gojira's Joe Duplantier. On paper, putting Duplantier and Persson in the same vocal booth sounds like an apocalyptic prospect, and on tape, it completely delivers.
Duplantier’s scraping, rhythmic roar interlocks seamlessly with Persson’s subterranean bark over an unyielding, syncopated groove that rattles with industrial menace. It avoids the trap of feeling like a tacked-on guest spot; instead, Duplantier is swallowed whole into the band's murky architecture, adding an abrasive, mechanical friction to the arrangement.
From there, the record moves through shifting dynamic terrain. Landby pulls back into cold, brooding introspection, letting delicate piano motifs from Kristian Karlsson simmer beneath swelling distortion before exploding into Breach, a furious, fast-paced assault driven by frantic blast beats and scorching tremolo leads.
The transition into The Rift and A Way Back showcases their supreme control over dynamic tension, layering ambient synth drones and mournful brass flourishes that give the crushing crescendos an almost tragic grandeur.
The centrepiece collaboration arrives with One More Day, enlisting the unmistakable presence of David Eugene Edwards (Wovenhand, 16 Horsepower). Edwards’ apocalyptic, dusty Appalachian sermonizing feels tailor-made for Cult Of Luna’s bleak Nordic terrain.
As his trembling, prophetic croon hovers over sparse acoustic strumming and deep synth swells, the track takes on the terrifying aura of a southern gothic exorcism before erupting into a suffocating, funeral-doom dirge. It is easily one of the most haunting pieces of music the collective has ever recorded.
As the record navigates its final chapters, the darkness only deepens. From Grey To Black grinds forward on a lurching, neck-snapping sludge groove that recalls the raw, unpolished hostility of their Somewhere Along the Highway era, stripping away cinematic excess in favour of pure, iron-plated bludgeon.
Closing out with the sprawling, eleven-minute epic Burial, the band brings the journey home on a wave of majestic, heart-wrenching catharsis. Slowly shedding its monstrous guitar walls, the track dissipates into solitary piano chords and drifting tape hiss, leaving you standing in the cold quiet long after the sound has ceased.
In The Shadow Of Your Shadow does not offer easy comfort or neat resolutions. It is a demanding, emotionally exhausting, and staggeringly heavy record from a band operating at the undisputed summit of their craft. While so many of their peers have either mellowed with age or run out of road, Cult Of Luna continue to dig deeper into the dark, carving out monuments of tone and feeling that will stand for decades.
An absolute masterpiece of modern heavy music. 9/10
The Machine – Another Sun (Awe Records / Stickman Records / Blues Funeral Recordings)
There’s a very distinct quality to records made in an artist’s own bespoke environment. When you don't have a ticking studio clock eating into your budget, and you aren't forced to compromise with an engineer who doesn't understand your low-end philosophy, magic happens.
Dutch heavy psych and space-rock veterans The Machine have spent nearly two decades operating as one of mainland Europe’s absolute crown jewels in the underground scene. But for their eighth full-length, Another Sun, guitarist and vocalist David Eering went one step further: he literally designed and built Evolver Studio in Dordrecht with his own hands. The result is a five-track, forty-three-minute masterclass in live-room chemistry that sounds completely untamed, physical, and drenched in celestial fuzz.
Rather than multitracking every instrument to a sterile digital grid, The Machine took an uncompromising old-school approach inspired by the raw, room-mic philosophy of the late Steve Albini. David Eering, bassist Chris Both, and drummer Klaas Dijkstra stood in the exact same room, plugged in, and tracked the lion's share of these massive compositions live together.
You can feel the air shifting around the amplifiers. The drums have a cavernous, natural resonance, the bass rumbles with thick, iron-plated weight, and Eering’s fuzz pedals hit with that physical punch that only happens when three musicians are locking eyes and riding the groove in real time.
The album opens with Drop/See, an eight-minute beast that wastes zero time showing off what this newly energized lineup is capable of. Starting with patient, swirling space-rock textures, the track suddenly erupts into an aggressive, frenzied drive that borders on murky sludge and heavy post-doom.
What keeps it fascinating is that the band seems completely happy to let the vehicle slide around on the road, there’s an unhinged, screeching edge to the guitar soloing that trades clean precision for pure white-knuckle adrenaline, anchored by Eering's surprisingly soaring, stadium-sized vocal delivery.
It rolls seamlessly into Evolver, a seven-minute track fittingly named after the studio that birthed it. Here, the trio marries driving desert-rock rhythms with kosmische synthesizers and bubbling theremin lines. Eering is a one-man sonic alchemist throughout this record, layering sitar, synths, and percussion into the mix, yet none of these experimental flourishes clutter the soundstage. It feels like a natural extension of the power trio format, pushing their classic Solar Corona DNA into far darker, more progressive waters.
The shortest piece on the release, In Search Of Yellow, provides arguably the most dramatic dynamic contrast. Clocking in at five and a half minutes, it opens up a breathtaking gulf between fragile, ambient psych contemplation and crushing walls of distorted noise. Both's bass tone is remarkably fluid here, carving out deep melodic trenches that give Dijkstra's intricate, rolling cymbal work room to breathe.
Then come the twin eleven-minute pillars that make up the back half of the record: Swallow The Sun and Echo Through.
On Swallow The Sun, The Machine lock into a tight, hypnotic, and almost ritualistic groove that refuses to let you go. It’s got that majestic, slow-burning heft that fans of Elder or King Buffalo will immediately gravitate toward, but delivered with a gritty, 90s grunge bite that keeps the music rooted firmly in the mud.
By the time Echo Through unfolds its sprawling, abstract ambient rock melodies and descends into a colossal, fuzz-drenched crescendo, you feel like you’ve been hauled through an entire galaxy and dropped back down to earth.
Another Sun is an absolute triumph from a band operating with total creative freedom. By marrying Albini-style live room recording with expansive, interstellar songwriting, The Machine have crafted one of the finest, most vital heavy psych albums of their career. An essential listen for anyone who likes their riffs served hot, loud, and straight from the floorboards. 9/10
Humulus – Smuggler's Cave (Ripple Music)
When fellow writer and trusted set of ears Rich Piva drops a recommendation on your desk, you take notice.
When that tip comes stamped with the logo of Ripple Music, one of his absolute go-to imprints for top-shelf heavy rock, you can pretty much guarantee you’re in safe hands. Rich has steered me right more times than I care to count, and with Smuggler's Cave, the fifth full-length outing from Italian power trio Humulus, he’s hit the bullseye yet again.
Formed in Brescia back in 2009, Humulus spent their formative years cutting their teeth on the burly, beer-soaked desert crunch of Kyuss, Orange Goblin, and Karma to Burn. But over fifteen years and several lineup evolutions, they’ve mutated into something far more dynamic, nimble, and psychedelic.
Arriving on Ripple Music as their second record featuring vocalist and guitarist Thomas Mascheroni (and the debut of new bassist Fabio Giacomini alongside sole founding drummer Massimiliano Boventi), Smuggler's Cave is easily their most focused, volcanic, and rewarding statement to date.
What makes this record land with such tremendous certainty is how effortlessly it bridges thunderous stoner crunch with vast, trippy atmosphere. Tracked out of marathon rehearsal jams between relentless European tours with acts like Colour Haze and Monkey3, these seven songs have that physical, live-room spark where every transition feels earned rather than programmed. Mascheroni’s vocal performance is a revelation throughout: clean, melodic, and razor-sharp, soaring right over the fuzz rather than getting swallowed by the dirt.
The album hits the ground running with Standing In The Sun, locking into a muscular groove before spilling into lead single Rise And Fall. Right away, you get unmistakable, glorious Lowrider and Dozer vibes, the crash cymbals wash out across the stereo field as an atmospheric backdrop, the kick drum punctuates the forward momentum with physical punch, and Mascheroni’s vocals float overhead with effortless swagger. It’s got that golden Scandinavian desert-rock bite (think Truckfighters or Greenleaf) channelled through an Italian lens, driven by big, rolling riffs that lodge in your head instantly.
The band’s narrative ambitions take centre stage across the record’s expansive midsection. The music was forged first, with the lyrics arriving later as an evocative journey through haunted forests, cemetery visions, and damned souls.
Pines provides a moody, dark-timbered build that explodes into thick fuzz, clearing the runway for the colossal title track, Smuggler's Cave. Stretching out with hypnotic patience, the title cut serves as the thematic spine of the whole record, moving between mysterious, brooding passages and roaring, volcanic climaxes that rattle right through the floorboards.
Down the back stretch, the trio keeps the electricity humming. Cemetery Vision leans into haunting, introspective psychedelia before Blue Wizard brings back the swaggering, head-nodding groove. Closing out with the heavy, doom-dappled stomp of Cursed Man, you’re left with the distinct impression of a band operating at the absolute peak of their creative and technical confidence.
Rich Piva called this one early, and he was dead on the money. Smuggler's Cave is a cracking, fuzz-drenched triumph from start to finish, rich in melody, packed with crushing riffs, and drenched in atmospheric smoke.
If you worship at the altar of classic desert rock and modern heavy psych, this belongs on your turntable immediately. 9/10
Gradience – Anomaly (Metal Blade Records)
When a debut album lands stamped with the Metal Blade logo alongside a premise that attempts to weld blackened death metal, trap beats, UK rap cadences, and post-rock textures into a singular weapon, your curiosity is inevitably going to spike. Danish outfit Gradience (spearheaded by vocalist Gavin Mistry and guitarist/vocalist Jakob Lærke Harris) clearly didn’t get the memo that crossing underground subcultures is supposed to be done politely.
Anomaly plays like two musicians walked into a room, looked at the sacred walls separating modern heavy subgenres, and decided knocking them down with a sledgehammer was far more entertaining. There is boundless ambition, a mountain of raw originality, and a clear vision at play, even if the final execution leaves you wishing the puzzle pieces clicked together with just a touch more finesse.
Reading through the critical chatter surrounding this release, you can see why it divides opinion so sharply. Some critics have hailed them as bastardised geniuses rewriting crossover rulebooks, while others have pointed out the dizzying whiplash of their genre-hopping.
For my money, the truth sits squarely in the middle. The creative courage on display across these eleven tracks is undeniable, but it occasionally feels like you’re listening to three brilliant, completely separate ideas fighting for control of the steering wheel at ninety miles an hour.
The record kicks the door down with Vermin, and it wastes zero time setting its chaotic terms. After barely a second of warning, blistering blast beats and blackened shrieks collide head-on with syncopated trap cadences. It’s abrasive, jarring, and completely disorienting.
It rolls straight into Blame Me, where Swedish melodic death metal riffs smash against bouncy nu-metal bounce and unexpected, soaring clean vocal hooks. When the transitions work, they hit with remarkable force; when they stumble, the gear shifts can pull you right out of the groove.
Where Gradience hit their absolute stride is on Agony. Kicking off with filthy, sludge-laden down-tuning, the track suddenly takes a wild left turn into four-on-the-floor dance beats, pulsating synths, and rapid-fire rapping before those disgusting guitars come roaring back in. It’s totally unhinged, completely unpredictable, and arguably the most cohesive statement on the album because they commit to the madness with total conviction.
Tracks like Master To The Slave, Stains, and Deathwish keep that creative blender spinning. There are moments of genuine sonic brilliance here, crushing, room-clearing breakdowns followed immediately by atmospheric, shoegaze-adjacent breathers.
The nagging issue across the record's runtime often comes down to the polish of the delivery. While the instrumentation mutates wildly from black metal frost to street-level grit, the rap flows occasionally sound a bit too restrained and safe compared to the sheer sonic violence detonating around them.
That friction resolves somewhat on A Witness and White Noise, which demonstrate what the band is capable of when they let a groove simmer before pulling the pin, while the closer Grimey Potential fittingly sums up the entire experience in its title: filthy, fascinating, and loaded with future promise.
Gradience haven't delivered a flawless masterpiece with Anomaly, but they’ve delivered something far rarer: an album that genuinely refuses to sound like anyone else on the current metal roster. The vision is daring, the riffs are lethal, and the intent is pure fire. If they can tighten up the transitions and let their vocal flows get just as feral and unhinged as their rhythm section on album number two, they are going to be unstoppable.
A fascinating, boundary-stretching.
7/10
