Cult of Luna - The Raging River Review EP (2021)

Genre(s): Post-metal

Recommended Track: Three Bridges

Label: Red Creek (distribution via Metal Blade & Season of Mist)

Rating: 2 out of 5

Review: For some, post-metal is THE avant-garde of modern metal. Post-metal, as a musical style, embraces atmosphere and noise at the expense of melody and groove. It is rooted in the intuition that distilling music into something more primordial can, in parallel, resonate with the listener more intimately. But it should also be clear that by abstracting music, or any medium of art really, too much, the music can ultimately lose what makes it different from noise in the first place. Want something primordial? Listen to a volcano eruption. To qualify as music, the chaos must be subdued.

This analysis is not to suggest that Cult of Luna are merely creating noise instead of music. Or that there are no contexts in which this stylistic approach would be appropriate. After all, looking for artists to expand metal's musical vocabular is, in some sense, the very essence of what progressive metal is all about. But for me, the direction of their composition simply gravitates too much to the more formless side of our auditory reality.

For what its worth, I fully recognize that some of my personal favorite artists like The Ocean and Tool make extensive use of post-metal passages in their music. But they never abandon the music's imperative to provide the listener with a groove and melody in the way much of the post-metal scene has abandoned it. And so it should come as no surprise that in those moments when The Raging River is an enjoyable listen, they basically sound exactly like The Ocean.

The Raging River is the first release from the band's new record label Red Creek. The band has characterized this release as "... a bridge. A midpoint that needs to be crossed so we can finish what we started with 2019's 'A Dawn to Fear'..." This quote along with the release being branded as an EP despite being 39 minutes long conspire to cast a shadow on just how much faith the band themselves have put in this material. And after a few listens, I can see why.