Three years passed since Cult Of Luna released their last record, the unique, gritty, mechanical beast called Vertikal. In the meantime, they went on a hiatus, returned from it, and decided that their sound needs that feeble layer of madness necessary to make a masterpiece. And they found it in the form of Julie Christmas, or better to say in her voice.
Mariner is a dark story about our probable fate. Earth is dying, there is no future in the world we once considered our home, and the only answer about our future lies in the stars, those speckles of light that fascinated us since the dawn of civilization. As Cult of Luna explained in a post on the site of their current label (Indie Recordings).
“The ship was leaking and by the look of it, our home was dying. No room for fear when a greater call demands your full attention. So, we left...
Onward, forward. Like the old seafarers, we explored the vastness of space.
Not bound by physical laws we pass the speed of light and chase the expansion of space until we reach its limit. And then, we continued on and disappeared.”
The mechanical feel of Vertikal evolved, transformed into melancholic feeling that appears when a person is standing in a fragile ship, floating through the void of space. Every song builds an atmosphere of fear, darkness, with the hope being found just in traces. After all, all great explorers had a dose of fear in their hearts and minds, traveling into the unknown, not knowing who and what they can run into. And, in a way, guys from Cult Of Luna probably felt the same. Adding a second vocal could’ve damaged their unique sound and atmosphere, but Julie performed marvelously.
Her cleans remind of early era Cyndi Lauper, while her screams give the music the layer of madness, elevating the songs, making them unique, and a joy to listen. Songwriting is simple on the first look, but with every new listen new, subtle coatings arise, a signature feat that was always one of the best things about CoL. There are just five songs, but album length is almost an hour, making every composition a multi-layered combination of explosive riffs, excellent drumming, earth-shattering soundscapes, and a plethora of different vocal styles.
Most songs could fit perfectly with some of the best Sci-Fi movies. Cygnus, a dark tale of what lies deep into the void, would feel like home in the first Alien movie. Chevron is a post-metal version of bleak, ruined, polluted world of Interstellar; other songs deliver that void-induced space melancholy, which works perfectly with the music. And when Julie starts to scream all hell breaks loose, and those frantic parts (that can be found in Chevron and Cygnus) are the best moments of Mariner.
All in all, Cult Of Luna delivered another post-metal masterpiece; it’s a shame that Mariner is a collaboration album, a one-time experiment that delivered magnificent results. Julie Christmas fits CoL like a glove, and it would be amazing to hear Mariner played live in its entirety. If possible, get your hands on the Japanese edition of the album; it has one more song called Beyond the Redshift that serves as a perfect album closer, a sort of epilogue telling us that space has no limits, that when you go off course, the only possible outcome is never-ending drift through the void. So embrace the void and listen to Mariner, especially if reaching for the stars was always your dream.
