Eternal Kingdom

Eternal Kingdom is the fifth studio album by Swedish post-metal band Cult of Luna. It was released in 2008 on Earache Records like the band's previous three albums. The album was recorded at Tonteknik Studios in Umeå where the band originates from[2] between February and April 2008.[1]

Eternal Kingdom
Studio album by
Cult of Luna
ReleasedEurope June 16, 2008
United States July 8, 2008
RecordedTonteknik Studios in Umeå, February—April 2008[1]
GenrePost-metal, sludge metal
Length60:54
LabelEarache Records
(MOSH359CDL)
ProducerCult of Luna
Cult of Luna chronology
Somewhere Along the Highway
(2006)		 Eternal Kingdom
(2008)		 Vertikal
(2013)

On June 26 it debuted at #47 on the Swedish album chart,[3] and in 2009 the band were nominated for a Grammisgalan in the category Best Rock Band.[4]

The album is accompanied by a bilingual hardback book and audiobook, Eviga riket, which features new soundscapes and pieces of music written and performed by the band. It was released on February 23, 2010.

Sound

The album is said to be heavier than the band's previous efforts and has a much darker tone.[5]

The band's guitarist, Erik Olofsson, has said the following about the new album: "It is with great ambition and struggle we have created a very heavy album. The sound is strong and progressive. Our compositions do not hold back on anything this time!"[6]

Theme

The album has no known concept or theme. The band initially told journalists that the album had a concept based on a diary they'd found in their practice space, but guitarist Johannes Persson revealed in 2012 that the alleged concept was a hoax, designed to expose music journalists' lazy questioning.[7]

The devised story was as follows: Cult of Luna rehearsed in an area that was once the site of a long demolished mental institution. Upon moving their practice space to a different spot on the same site, the band uncovered long forgotten relics of the hospital, including old apparatus and medical journals. Amongst the discovery was the diary of Holger Nilsson, a former inmate of the prison placed there after drowning his wife. The diary was titled 'Tales from the Eternal Kingdom'.

Digesting the diary, the band realised that they had stumbled upon the ramblings of a madman. In the diary, Nilsson blamed the death of his wife on the Näcken, a Swedish folk entity that was known for drowning locals in rivers by singing them into a trance in Swedish mythology. The diary created a completely imagined world in which owl men and tree men all contributed to a fantasy story that explained why Nilsson was innocent of the crime.

The fake concept was accepted by journalists until the launch of the Eviga riket book, when literary critics picked up on the fallacies of the story. Ahead of the book's release, Erik Jonsson of Västerbottens-Kuriren theorized that the persona of Holger Nilsson must be part or entirely fiction.[8] The name is a play on Nils Holgersson, and other aspects of the fictional story are based on jokes within the band's personal lives.

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[9]
Decibel8/10[10]
The List[11]
Ox-Fanzine[12]
PopMatters8/10[13]
Rock Hard9/10[14]
Rock Sound9/10[15]
Terrorizer7.5/10

Track listing

All music is composed by Cult of Luna

No.TitleLength
1."Owlwood"7:39
2."Eternal Kingdom"6:41
3."Ghost Trail"11:50
4."The Lure (Interlude)"2:33
5."Mire Deep"5:10
6."The Great Migration"6:32
7."Österbotten"2:19
8."Curse"6:30
9."Ugín"2:44
10."Following Betulas"8:56

Fire Was Born

Eternal Kingdom was re-released with their first full-length live DVD Fire Was Born on April 27, 2009, along with a re-issue of Eternal Kingdom. The video entered the Swedish DVD charts in third position, while the re-released album entered at number 51 on the music charts.[16]

Personnel

References
  1. Eternal Kingdom (Media notes). Cult of Luna. Earache Records. 2008. MOSH359CDL.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. "Cult of Luna announce tour dates". blabbermouth.net. Archived from the original on 2008-04-17. Retrieved 2008-04-14.
  3. "Cult of Luna - Eternal Kingdom" (in Swedish). hitparad.se. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
  4. "Årets Hårdrock" (in Swedish). Grammis. Archived from the original on 2008-12-07. Retrieved 2008-11-30.
  5. "Cult of Luna announce new album title". earache records. 11 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
  6. "Erik on new album". earache records. 11 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
  7. Patchinsky, Boris. "Interview: Cult Of Luna". Metalorgie.
  8. Jonsson, Erik (3 February 2010). "Undflyende dokument med osäker riktning" (in Swedish). Västerbottens-Kuriren. Archived from the original on 11 February 2011. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  9. Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Eternal Kingdom – Cult of Luna". allmusic. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  10. Bonazelli, Andrew (August 2008). "Give a Hoot, Sound Pollute". Decibel (46). Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  11. Borthwick, Andrew (3 July 2008). "Cult of Luna – Eternal Kingdom". The List (606). Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  12. "Review". www.ox-fanzine.de.
  13. Savanadasa, Rajith (30 July 2008). "Cult of Luna - Eternal Kingdom". PopMatters. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  14. "Rock Hard review". issue 255.
  15. "Cult of Luna - Eternal Kingdom". Archived from the original on July 8, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
  16. "Album charts". Cult of Luna. 2009-05-08. Archived from the original on 2009-08-18. Retrieved 2009-05-13.
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