The uncrowned leaders of post-metal from Sweden are bringing a new album to Prague and their tour-company couldn't be more enticing. Cult of Luna's long road from the North has brought them together with the legendary Chicago post-trio Russian Circles.

CULT OF LUNA is one of those bands that represent an overall vision of a concept thought out in detail. As a result, their albums are an experience that takes concerts to an even higher level because of their visual sophistication. The sound and lighting design, the timing and synchronisation, the on-stage positioning. Everything connected by an idea.
The Swedish sextet, which includes a duo of drummers, wants to come up with something fresh and untried every time, and to reveal previously unexplored places in order to push the boundaries of a genre that has been diminishing over their 25-year career. Last year they ventured North and once again created a sound that is unmatched by any other. Ambitious, epic and saturated with emotion that, in songs often over eight minutes, explode not just at the precise moment, but resonate with every moment.
With "A Dawn To Fear" (2019), they perhaps brought the pinnacle of their career and continued the journey started by that record on the EP "The Raging River" (2021). But every journey has an end and a final destination. That turned out to be North. On last year's "The Long Road North", one of the most dynamic and beautiful works of the atmo-metal genre ever, the uncrowned leaders of post-metal bring the concept to perfection.

On the tour for the current record, the Swedish hegemony joins forces with the instrumental post-trio RUSSIAN CIRCLES. On their previous seven albums, these also legends have got through a diverse topography of sounds, moods and approaches, mixing drone meditation, progressive approach, powerful riffing, captivating balladry and tension-filled noise rock. But always while maintaining consistency.

However, on their latest album Gnosis, due to the circumstances of isolation in the covid period, RUSSIAN CIRCLES rethought the songwriting process and instead of composing from scraps of ideas, the songs were written and recorded separately before the writers shared them with the other members. With the new method, the Chicagoans have created their most thrilled and concentrated work to date - an album that favors the exorcism of two-year-old tension over the melancholy and a certain restraint that have often tinged their past efforts. And it's a force!

Also sharing the line with both bands are England's SVALBARD, who settle their atmospheric musical visions, complete with two voices, into a d-beat rhythm, and you can detect more euphoric black or post-rock passages in their sound.