Post metal fans have been eating well this year. With Neurosis’ surprise return in January the year was off to a jaw dropping start, and now we’ve reach November we have a new album from the equally beloved Cult of Luna. There have been great record in between of course, but In The Shadow Of Your Shadow also feels like an event release.

It is impossible to really sum up every single element that makes any great post metal record excellent. It’s a genre all about layering and little nuances that reveal themself even more on each subsequent listen, and Cult of Luna have always been great at that. This record is, as expected, a patient listening experience, that is probably most typified in the way I react whenever the fifth track, The Rift, comes on. My first reaction is always “oh, it’s the fast one”, before spending over two minutes listening to the slow, meditative build up. It never gets boring in that anticipation, the spooky aura the sound scapes conjure with with the rattle drums, sparse guitars and swirling synths. Even the pained vocals add to the portentous feeling before the fast riff finally comes in. And because of all that, it hits so much harder. After that the drums settle into an almost dancey groove with squalling guitars over the top. Following another explosion of fast riffing we drop into quieter realms again with a sinister bass line, with a strange melody coming in over the vocals where I’m not sure if it’s a synth or a clean vocal line. The track closes out with another fast bit and it’s just glorious.

But look how much I just wrote about one track – the one I simply consider “the fast one”. I didn’t even touch on every background touch from a synth or additional guitar flourish that I’ve picked up on all my listens so far. I say all this to a) justify not going through every track in excruciating detail and b) to highlight the incredible compositional and arrangement abilities within this band. Yes, they’ve been great at this for nearly thirty years now, but it bears repeating when they’re putting out work that’s this complex.

This really is an album for people who love listening to drums and percussion. Just listen to the the hi-hat led groove on Breach, the subtle work on A Way Back, honestly I could probably highlight a great drum moment on almost every track on the record. It’s very rare for the drums to be following a simple, straightforward rock/metal beat – it never gets overbearing or irritating, every flourish serves the song perfectly.

On the subject of stand out performances, there are two features on In The Shadow Of Your Shadow, the first on Sadness Will Reign from Gojira’s Joe Duplantier. For a vocalist with such a distinctive voice, it’s amazing how well he melts into the canvas of Cult of Luna, adding a shade more melody along side Johannes Persson’s distressing screams. It’s really great, though I do think the vocal highlight of the song is Persson being left to hold out the final scream on his own at the end.

On the other end of the feature spectrum is David Eugene Edwards on One More Day. He is much more foregrounded bringing the intense, gothic croon he’s become known for. It’s a perfect combination with Cult of Luna’s unsettling atmospherics, with chiming, whirring synths wrapping around his vocals. The elastic riffing of the track underlines Persson’s screams, making it sound like a conversation between two extremely unsettling vocalists. The run-time of the track, at nearly twelve minutes, really lets the band fully explore this dynamic. It’s essential listening.

This record is so good that it’s made me accept and appreciate an interlude track, which does just make me feel dirty. Landby is excellent though. It follows the pained howl of Sadness Will Reign with a mellow guitar piece. It feels like no phrase properly resolves itself and as more layers of synths grow around the core guitar part, everything gets more and more unsettling. And then it happens. A weird, fucked up whistling comes in. I’m not sure if it’s actually whistling passed through a lot of processing, a synth line or some kind of ultra processed ocarina but whatever it is, it’s great.

In The Shadow Of Your Shadow closes on Burial, another track that’s nearly twelve minutes long and justifies every second. It builds layer after layer of sound on you before pulling back and letting the tide of riffs, beats and synths rise around you again until you feel like you’re going to drown again. It repeats variations of this trick again and again, each one with a slightly different feel and execution. It’s pure bliss for post metal fans.

In The Shadow Of Your Shadow is another master class from one of heavy music’s greatest bands. There’s so much here that I haven’t talked about simply for the sake of brevity (and trying to get the review out some time this year), but that’s okay because you should listen to this album. Set aside an hour and twelve minutes to do nothing else and really live in this album. It’s worth it.