Leaving the main stage at the end of the final night at Arctangent, it was almost impossible to articulate the depth of emotion that Sweden’s Cult Of Luna, together with Julie Christmas, had reached following their headline performance of Mariner. Looking around the crowd, jaws were open, heads shaking in disbelief at what we had witnessed. A show of incredible magnitude.
Cult Of Luna – In The Shadow Of Your Shadow
Release Date: 6 November 2026
Words: Paul Hutchings
Having been around for nearly 30 years, there is still plenty of quality in the new record, their tenth. And at 71 minutes duration, In The Shadow Of Your Shadow is not a work you can rush.
With a history that stretches back to their Swedish home Umeå, home to fellow legendary innovators Meshuggah and Refused, Cult Of Luna are an outfit that immediately drew attention with their self-titled debut in 2001 before two successive albums pushed them out into the global spotlight.
They draw widely, and even ten albums in, those inspirations from Hardcore, Sludge, Metal, folk and art-rock remain in evidence. It is a lineup that has been interlinked for decades, with the most recent addition to the band, keyboardist Kristian Karlsson, a mere 13 years in.
The rest have been together for 25 years, with founders Magnus Líndberg (percussion/guitar) and Johannes Persson (guitar/vocals) joined by Andreas Johansson on bass, drummer Thomas Hedlund and Fredrik Kihlberg (guitar/vocals).
In The Shadow Of Your Shadow is a dark affair. Channelling experiences of loss in a bleakness that surely will resonate as winter’s ghostly fingers make their icy way into the fading autumn nights, nothing is starker than the title track that opens the album.
“We all have our history, we all have our baggage,” Persson explains. “Everything that you’ve gone through leads you to where you are right now. It’s a boring cliché, but it’s true. There were certain things that I thought I’d left behind, and certain events during the last couple of years have brought them back. When you put the lid on things for decades, it’s interesting to see how they come back. This parasite is back again.”
Following this, the bluntness of Sadness Will Reign sees a guest appearance from Gojira’s Joe Duplantier, who screams, “All of you are born from filth!” His distinctive voice adds to the song without question.
After a brief interlude on the haunting instrumental Landby, the central masterpiece eases into place. Breach powers through over 12 minutes, the band delivering a sprawling progressive epic, with Persson’s gruff vocals working overtime as he roars above a crescendo of intricate play.
It is full Metal jacket next though, as the band flex their Metal muscles on The Rift, which contains one of the best riffs I have heard this year before easing back into an atmospheric, eerie passage that then explodes back into a raging inferno of chaos and intensity. The change of pace comes easy, yet sounds incredible and so dramatic.
Elsewhere, there is a different approach on the mellow A Way Back, whilst the sheer scale of emotion delivered on One More Day, which covers the struggle of depression, getting through life one day at a time, switches to a Fields Of The Nephilim-like crawl, accentuating the baritone of 16 Horsepower leader and American folk icon David Eugene Edwards. It is a twist amongst twists, and a demonstration of why this band remain in the top tier of this genre.
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David has been a huge influence for years,” says Persson. “I’ve been a huge fan of 16 Horsepower, his solo projects and Wovenhand for decades. One More Day is one of my favourite tracks on the album. His voice fits perfectly on the song, and it carries the subject matter with conviction.”
Limitless creativity leads to the final behemoth song. Burial is another massive brooding beast, a monumental piece inspired by the arc of life and death.
It features some of the hardest riffs on the album and provides a towering and magnificent finale to possibly the best album of 2026.
“I’ve always had a non-dramatic relationship with death,” explains Persson. “I think it’s because I grew up in a religious environment where death was not considered the end. Even though I’m an atheist and believe that what happens after you die is the same as what happened before you were born, the subject of the end, and how it makes people want to throw themselves into the vast nothingness, has always fascinated me.”
There is little else to say apart from to acknowledge the co-production of Daniel Berglund and mixing by Magnus Lindberg.
In The Shadow Of Your Shadow stands apart from most other things I have heard this year.
Their headline set at Damnation is even more anticipated now. Devastating, diverse, and just phenomenal.
Cult Of Luna release In The Shadow Of Your Shadow on 6 November 2026 via RED CRK. For more details, visit https://www.cultofluna.com.
