Cult Of Luna venue: Sticky Fingers, Göteborg date: 2005-03-10 A Cult Of Luna show in Sweden is what I’ve been waiting for since the day I started working for a music distribution company in this country. The first time I actually listened to, not heard, C O L was when I started that job early 2004. This makes me a late comer you might say, well, in some cases its better late than never. It was a Thursday night punt for the rockfest in Sweden’s home of metal. Gothenburg is actually dubbed “Metalstad” in Swedish amongst heavy music lovers meaning “Metaltown”, and tonight is no exception bringing three top class heavy acts to the upstairs venue of Sticky Fingers. The first band was Finland’s Rotten Soundand unfortunately missed them due to unawareness (I was still suffering severe jetlag I might bring to your attention) of the full line up and walked in to the first song of the Disfear set. The lads in Rotten Sound must have made an impression as a majority of the merch I seen in the eager hands belonged to the Finns. My first thought as I stood in the wall of noise watching Disfear was “These guys are dirty, bone rattlin’ riff monsters” and they were living up to any fan of a stompin’ metal tune. Some great stage presence, cool bottom heavy tunes, and a front man that has the right approach towards an entusiastic audience. It was awesome to see, the singer being of At The Gates and The Crown fame Thomas Lindberg. These guys obviously had some fun on stage as smiles were slipped in between verses and choruses. There seemed to be a bunch of people out and about to catch there set tonight. The headlining band are out and about on their biggest European tour to date, working the road following the late last year release of their third album Salvation, released late last year on the Ipecac label of master minded, multi talented Mike Patton. They were opening act for Bleeding Through through some parts of Europe and used this as a leg up onto their own headlining Euro tour. The Cult Of Luna come from that famous north region of Sweden where the sun don’t go down in Summer and heaven forbid the bloody thing doesn’t come up in winter. I am quite aware of the affects the Swedish climate can have on ones self and those winters must be pretty longwinded. All the more reason to find a few buddies to create some of the most epic sounding songs that have ever come from that part of the world. If you feel that you may recognise a few faces in C O L the members have branched off to form other projects aswell, not all being as heavy as C O L I should note (Koma and The Perishers to name a couple). After a delay, to what seemed to be the result some technical difficulties C O L walked on and took their positions. If my memory serves me correctly there has been a change of drummers as I was expecting to see the presence of Thomas Hedlund behind the kit this evening ( I witnessed his awesomeness during a Koma gig in Stockholm last year). Never the less, the beginning of atmospheric guitars, bass and drums that C O L are renowned for brought a cheer from awaiting fans. The initial impact as singer Klas (pronounced Class) takes the stage and brings a whole new element to the show that is undeniably huge in many areas. He’s explosive and charasmatic, spitting lyrics over distorted, massively melodics riffs bringing a bunch of songs to the forefront of tonight with what was certainly a collective celebration of “thinkers” metal. It wasn’t only the singers explosiveness that captures your attention as each and every one of the 7 members had there own thing goin on. You can feel the thought that has been put into making each song its own. As the set rolled on to an end there was a cheer for more from the remaining audience but this doesn’t bring any luck, no encore. The P.A. system belts out music and it’s a hint to make your way to the bar or the tram. I decide to relish the shitty weather I’d managed to escape for the last two months by hiding in Australia, the “Metalstad” hasn’t changed a bit. – Check out the new look website too! www.cultofluna.com /Kaine