Okay...so the story of the formation of this band is somewhat peculiar, but also not unthinkable in these days of Internet communications. You know, the four members of Culted have never actually been together in one room, but is that actually such an amazing feat? I mean, if musicians from different sides of the globe can contribute to songs written by others, why could they not switch ideas back an forth in order to write music together? I mean, it's been done before, you know!
It was in 2007, after hearing Daniel Jansson's Industrial Deadwood project, that multi-instrumentalist Michael Klassen (also of Malefaction) conferred with his Of Human Bondage bandmate, the multi-instrumentalist Matthew Friesen, to contact the Gothenburg based singer about collaborating for that band. While e-mailing back and forth, a common interest for bands in the style of Khanate, Sunn O))) and Electric Wizard was discovered, and Jansson suggested they put together a completely new project of slow-down, Blackened Metal. Now Klassen and Friesen worked out of a home studio in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which enabled them to start recording at their own leisure, and by sending sound files back and forth over the Atlantic by Internet (Jansson also had/has a home studio), the band eventually assembled the material which would make out their debut album, 2009's Relapse release Thunders Of The Upper Deep. 4 more tracks were released on the band's March 2010 follow-up EP Of Death And Ritual, and then...well, obviously the guys were busy with some different things in between, right? But work on new material was eventually resumed, and now the project...expanded with drummer Kevin Stevenson on the Canadian side (born and raised in the same town as the two other Cannucks, he is now also a member of OHB), and by synth player/ sound manipulator Erik Larsen on the Swedish side, has returned with their second full-length, and at 62 minutes playing time, it deserves to be called full-length indeed!
Expect slow (down-tuned?) guitars with drawn-out feedback, and a singer capable to bring the chills to your spine (with some occasional samples giving him release from vocal delivery), and expect to hear some of the music at the album's BandCamp (the “Music” section at (www.) facebook.com/Culted will get you there!) or MySpace pages (no idea what's on there, as I haven't been able to log onto that site since ages...due to using a network computer for all my research work, you know! - And yes, I still do not have Internet at home!). By the way, the album comes in both CD and double LP versions, but I guess you'll have to hurry to get a copy of the latter!