Cult of Luna released their 10th studio album, In the Shadow of Your Shadow, on November 6, and within days it was sitting near the top of Bandcamp's best-selling metal chart. That says a lot about the Swedish band. Twenty-five years after their debut, they still sell like an underground act that people actually buy on vinyl, and they still make records that refuse to be short.
This one runs 71 minutes across nine tracks. The band's own notes call it possibly the darkest release to bear their name, written after recent experiences of loss, and it brings in two guest voices that tell you exactly where it sits: Joe Duplantier of Gojira and David Eugene Edwards of Wovenhand and 16 Horsepower.
Three songs past eleven minutes
The shape of the record is the first thing to notice. Breach runs 12 minutes 16 seconds. One More Day, the David Eugene Edwards feature, runs 11:49. The closer, Burial, runs 11:51. Together those three pieces make up half the album. Between them sit shorter moves like Landby, at 2:43 the only track under five minutes, which works as a breath before the longest song on the record.
That pacing is classic Cult of Luna. Since their early albums the band have built songs out of slow repetition and long crescendos rather than verses and choruses, and the payoff only lands if you give the full length of the song. The notes describe the album as a stark rejection of trends, convention and pandering to the audience, which on paper is a big claim. The run times back it up.
The guests: Gojira and Wovenhand
The two features pull the album in opposite directions. Sadness Will Reign, with Joe Duplantier, is one of the shortest songs here at 4:47, the closest thing the record has to a single. Duplantier fronts one of the biggest bands in modern metal, so this is the track most likely to bring new listeners in.
One More Day goes the other way. David Eugene Edwards built his reputation on dark, gospel-haunted folk, first with 16 Horsepower and then with Wovenhand, and putting his voice inside a nearly 12-minute Cult of Luna track fits the band's description of themselves as drawing on hardcore, sludge metal, folk and art-rock all at once. If you only have time for two songs before deciding on the record, play these two back to back.
In the Shadow of Your Shadow tracklist
- In the Shadow of Your Shadow (7:34)
- Sadness Will Reign, featuring Joe Duplantier (4:47)
- Landby (2:43)
- Breach (12:16)
- The Rift (7:55)
- A Way Back (5:57)
- One More Day, featuring David Eugene Edwards (11:49)
- From Grey to Black (6:37)
- Burial (11:51)
The album was co-produced by Daniel Berglund and mixed by Magnus Lindberg. It is out on Red Creek, the label that appears on the band's own site and handles their physical editions.
Vinyl and compact disc editions
At 71 minutes the album needs two records, so every vinyl version is a double LP in a gatefold sleeve. The band's Bandcamp lists six physical editions:
- Foil edition, transparent with marbled white. Limited to 1,000. The sleeve swaps the printed rings for a reflective foil version, which makes it the showpiece of the set.
- AB side effect on white and black. Limited to 500. Each disc is split between the two colors.
- AB side on white and green. Limited to 500, and the only edition that breaks from the black, white and grey of the artwork.
- Transparent with marbled black. Limited to 500.
- Black vinyl. The standard pressing, and the one to get if you care about the cleanest playback over the look.
- Compact disc (CD) digibook. A book-style package for people who still want the full album on one disc.
Cult of Luna tour dates 2027
The band's site lists a European and United Kingdom run for early 2027:
- February 26: Lausanne, Switzerland, Les Docks
- February 27: Toulouse, France, Le Bikini
- February 28: Barcelona, Spain, Razzmatazz
- March 1: Lyon, France, La Rayonne
- March 3: Paris, France, Le Trianon
- March 4: Maastricht, Netherlands, Muziekgieterij
- March 5: Lille, France, L'Aéronef
- March 6: London, United Kingdom, O2 Forum Kentish Town
- March 7: Brussels, Belgium, Ancienne Belgique
- March 9: Strasbourg, France, La Laiterie
- March 10: Wiesbaden, Germany, Schlachthof
- March 11: Berlin, Germany, Huxleys
- March 12: Warsaw, Poland, Progresja
- March 13: Prague, Czech Republic, Archa+
Tickets and any new dates are on the official Cult of Luna tour page.
Where to buy In the Shadow of Your Shadow
- Digital, vinyl and CD from the band. All six physical editions plus the download, direct from Cult of Luna on Bandcamp.
- The label store. Red Creek carries the album and the band's back catalogue and merch at the Red Creek Cult of Luna collection.
If the long-form side of heavy music is your thing, our post-rock starter guide covers the slow-build records that share this album's patience, and our look at Godflesh's Streetcleaner on vinyl goes back to one of the crushing records this whole sound grew from.
Our call: listen, start to finish, before you pick an edition. A 71-minute album built around three songs near the 12-minute mark is not something to judge from one track, and the two guests pull it in very different directions. Start with Sadness Will Reign and One More Day on the Bandcamp player, and if those land, the limited pressings are capped at 500 to 1,000 copies each, so the colored editions are the ones to move on first.
