Release Date: 7/7/2025

Sin is an album forged in contrast to its predecessors. Where 33 reached upward in pursuit of harmony and resolution, Sin begins the downward spiral. And where Cardinal Winds explored the moral clarity of conviction, Sin reflects its inverse: moral erosion. These two albums stand across from one another, mirroring each other around the crux of 33. One is the voice of conscience. The other is what happens when that voice is ignored.

The concept draws heavily from Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, reinterpreted through a modern lens. Not a retelling, but a reckoning. Each of the seven primary compositions corresponds to one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The songs do not name them, nor offer resolution. Instead, they present descent as a natural consequence of imbalance. Of misaligned will. Of indulgence unchecked.

The structure of the album follows a slow unwinding. Sonically, Sin leans into darkness and intensity. There is less ascension, more collapse. The record opens with “The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer,” a reference to Yeats’ The Second Coming, setting the tone: disconnection, unraveling, entropy. What follows is a procession not through fire and brimstone, but through isolation, distortion, and internal ruin.

The visual language of Sin is constructed around a stark trinity: red, black, and white. These are not merely design choices—they are symbolic anchors. Red signifies damnation. Black represents the void. White suggests a sterile, cold purity—one not of salvation, but of judgment. Together, they embody the album’s descent through moral collapse, inner disfigurement, and spiritual silence.

The front cover features The Falsifiers from Gustave Doré’s Inferno. Two figures—Dante and Virgil—overlook a tortured array of souls. Centered within this scene is the Leviathan Cross, a symbol historically associated with sulfur in alchemical tradition, and more recently adopted as a sigil of rebellion and opposition to moral law.

The back cover continues the theme of descent. Another Doré engraving—this time of a spiralling vortex—serves as the backdrop, while the tracklist sits framed below. Each title is marked with esoteric glyphs, drawn from The Cultus lexicon. These symbols, some planetary, some elemental, hint at deeper alignments—offering a layered interpretation for those paying attention.

Opening the gatefold, the inner panorama reveals a reimagined cosmological map of Hell, echoing the structure laid out in Dante’s Inferno. It charts the nine descending circles of hell with the album’s tracklist residing in its own infernal circle, each branded with its related demonic sigil.

Where previous RANGES releases suggested ascent, awakening, or revelation, Sin is a deliberate inversion. It does not rise—it descends. It does not console—it confronts. Every visual choice in the standard edition reinforces this: a fall into something deeper, darker, and far more human.

SIN - Deluxe Edition

Seven 7” Records. Black on Black Artwork. Limited to 37 Copies.

The Deluxe Edition of Sin is not simply an expanded version of the album—it is an artifact created to embody the weight of sin itself. Every decision in its construction—from the color scheme to the symbolic objects within—was made with purpose. There is no filler, no flourish. To open the box is to engage the work. Nothing is revealed until it is faced.

Inside are seven individual 7” records, each representing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Each A-side contains one of the core compositions from Sin, while each B-side features a vinyl-exclusive piece composed specifically for this format. These B-sides do not appear on any digital edition of the album. The B-sides are etched with engravings that explain their correspondence to their counterpart.

Each 7” jacket is screen printed by hand in black ink on white sleeves. On each, a unique engraving by Gustave Doré—taken from his illustrations of Dante’s Inferno—has been adapted to match the emotional tone of its corresponding sin. Each 7” includes an inner sleeve hand-printed with black ink on black paper. Structurally, this seven-record format mirrors the circles of hell: the listener moves one layer at a time, deeper with each rotation.

Accompanying the vinyl set is a deck of poker cards, black-on-black, with illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of Doré’s work. Alongside them is a pair of custom six-sided dice finished in matte black with black pips with the RANGES logo emblazoned on the six side.

The box also includes a hand-rolled cigar—Nicaraguan Jalapa tobacco, aged 2–3 years, bound in a band bearing the RANGES mark. Its flavor is complex: earth, cashew, and subtle sweetness. The cigar is not just a luxury item; it’s a meditation on time, indulgence, and impermanence—designed to be burned, and gone. Paired with a box of black-tipped cigar matches, the pair form a ritual: ignition, consumption, ash.

A shooter glass with black smoke is also enclosed. It functions both as a ceremonial vessel and a collector’s item to sit proudly on the shelf.

A graphite long sleeve hand-printed with Gustave Doré’s The Falsifiers accompanies the Sin Deluxe Edition set. The seven planetary symbols are printed down the right sleeve, each corresponding to a Deadly Sin and a song from the album. On the left cuff sits the RANGES logo.

The final artifact is a 24” x 12” hand-printed poster featuring the standard edition gatefold artwork in black ink on black paper.

This Deluxe Edition is not an exaltation of sin. It is a confrontation with it. It asks no questions and offers no absolution. It invites you to sit with the tension, to hold the weight, and to descend—one circle at a time.

PrE7udE V

Release Date: 05/05/2025

Before Sin was announced, it had already begun.

Released quietly on May 5th, 2025, PRE7UDE V marked the unofficial start of the Sin cycle. Limited to 33 copies, the cassette stripped away all drums and guitars from the core Sin compositions, leaving only the ambient pads, keys, and synths beneath. It was not a remix. It was what remained when the violence was removed.

A deluxe edition—limited to just 7 copies and available only through the Gods of the Marketplace—featured identical audio but was printed in black ink as a nod to the deeper, hidden world of The Cultus. It also included access to hidden digital prelude versions of the ambient B-sides from the Sin 7” deluxe edition.

Inside the packaging was a hidden puzzle. Those who deciphered it—by realigning the track titles using a diagram pulled from the Confusion of Tongues gatefold—unlocked access to an early stream of Sin on June 30, The Cultus Holy Day known as Aurora. It was an initiation, veiled in obscurity, offered only to those willing to piece it together.

PRE7UDE V was not an announcement. It was a quiet signal. A threshold for those already paying attention.