LABEL:     Earache / Rough Trade
WEBSITE: www.cultofluna.com
MUSIC:    MySpace
VIDEO:    Leave Me Here Video
AGENT:    Joost Kamp

BIOGRAPHY:
Cult of Luna emerged from the infamous hardcore act Eclipse. When the band split up, vocalist Klas Rydberg along with guitarist Johannes Persson had new ideas how to explore music further on. A new band had come to light, soon to be called Cult of Luna. After some member hunting and rehearsals, Cult of Luna had some ideas on the sound; raw, heavy and emotional. The first line-up consisted of: Klas, Johannes, Erik, Magnus and Fredrik. After a short period of time, Fredrik had to leave due to some personal difficulties.

When practice started to pay off, CoL hit the studio for the first time and recorded a two-track demo (January 1999). After some more rehearsal and after the first gig, the band felt that to fully live out their wet dreams of sound experimenting, one more member was needed to handle the electronic sounds. Since Magnus had both knowledge and equipment, he was self written. Given that Magnus had handled the drums earlier, they needed a new drummer. And that they found in a mutual friend, his name was Marco and he had previous helped them out with more primitive sample engineering on live performances. A new bass player was also found, again through mutual friends, named Axel. The frequency of rehearsals were pretty low at this point, and therefore also live performances. The fact that the band members lived in different cities made it hard to give priority to write new material, and to do live shows. Yet another mutual friend helped CoL to release their first record. Tim, head of Trust No One recordings released a 7" split vinyl with friends Switchblade.

Watching a concert at the Trastock festival 2000, UK label Rage of Achilles got in contact with Cult of Luna. Pretty soon after that it was agreed that RoA was to release Cult of Luna's debut full-length album. Release date was September 14th, 2001. In these days, Hydra Head records had also shown interest in Cult of Luna, and this co-operation resulted in a two-track 7" colored vinyl on HH records released march 24th, 2002. These two songs were recorded at the same time as the self titled full-length on Rage of Achilles. Immediately after the release of the first album, news of the band's mammoth sound worked its way into cult circles and the band received rave reviews. Discerning listeners instantly appreciated the bands unique approach, trading light and dark to create music that hit the heart and the head in equal measures.

After the success of the first album, Earache records contacted Cult of Luna and wanted to sign a record deal. After some negotiations during the spring of 2002, CoL finally signed the deal. Immediately after that CoL entered Tonteknik studios to record their second album "The Beyond". After the recording session, Andreas joined in on bass after the departure of Axel, who had left the band before the studio session. "The Beyond" was released in early 2003, to critical acclaim. Cult of Luna proved categorically that they were now ready to bring their soundscapes to a much wider audience. After the release of "The Beyond", Cult Of Luna toured Sweden with The Haunted and the UK with Isis. After this, the line up changed seeing drummer Marco Hilden replaced by Thomas Hedlund, and an additional keyboard player - Anders Teglund - was added as a permanent fixture, after stepping into Magnus' shoes for the UK shows with Isis. Magnus took care of the additional percussion parts, and thus the current line-up was completed.

Now touring became a lot more frequent. Late summer 2003 Cult of Luna ventured into Europe with US hardcore sensations Poison The Well, to amazing press reactions. I December the same year CoL returned to the UK for a tour with art noise merchants Dillinger Escape Plan. The early part of 2004 was mostly dedicated to writing songs for their follow up to "The Beyond". Though, they found the time to play a few long awaited shows in Sweden and Finland, before entering Tonteknik studios once again. The recording of the latest album "Salvation" were done in three different sessions, thus enabling the band to take some rest and think about possible changes that needed to be done. Finally, in late July 2004 the mixing process was complete.

"Salvation" was released October 4th, 2004 in Europe and Oct 19th in the US. This album marks a new era in the history of Cult of Luna, both visually and sonically. At the same time as "Salvation" was hitting the stores, CoL embarked on a Europe/UK headline tour, which also included Scandinavian and European dates.

Regarding the future, 2005 will be a very interesting year for Cult of Luna. A lot of touring is in the pipeline, that will hopefully bring the band to the US, as well as Europe.

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