The Cult – Electric / Peace

The roots of Electric lay in another album entirely, Peace (coming soon), which was recorded with Love producer Steve Brown in a series of sessions that the band found increasingly pressure-filled and fraught with tension. A chance meeting with Def Jam supremo Rick Rubin at an American awards ceremony turned out to be the charm, resulting in the saucy chest-baring stomp of Electric. Rubin chucked all the old recordings for a series of new sessions, stripping everything down and essentially transforming Billy Duffy into the logical successor to AC/DC's Angus Young. Thankfully Ian Astbury decided not to become Brian Johnson, and while his macho yells can't help being cartoonish, he's clearly having fun throughout.
Though both band and album caught a lot of flak for their perceived wallowing in dinosaur sounds and styles, the end result is still a fist-punching yelp of energy that demands to be heard at maximum volume in arenas, with a brusque punch in Les Warner's drums to match Duffy's power-chord action. "Love Removal Machine" is still the album's calling card, another in the series of instantly catchy Cult singles. "Li'l Devil" is almost as worthy, while other cuts like "Wild Flower" and "King Contrary Man" would have sounded good in 1973 and sound just as good in a new century. There are a couple of missteps -- "Peace Dog" starts good but ends up being what happens when the Doors are used as a model in the wrong way, while the version of the Steppenwolf classic "Born to Be Wild" should be taken out and shot. Otherwise, Electric is an enjoyable pleasure from start to finish -- even if Astbury sings "plastic fantastic lobster telephone" at one point.

The Cult – Peace / Electric

Now this is long overdue… The story here is that in October 1986, when goth-minded British rockers The Cult began recording their third album, Peace, with Love producer Steve Brown at the helm, the initial sessions were unsatisfying and scrapped in favour of new recordings made with über-beard Rick Rubin, the most transformative producer and A&R ever. In a nutshell, the songs originally sounded like the previous album, 1985’s Love. While that was an excellent record in its own right, the atmospheric new songs meandered all over the place in the Love style and didn’t really represent progress. It’s understandable, then, that Rubin was brought in, saying – and this is verbatim, quoted at the time – that he didn’t want any more “pussy jangly guitars”. The album, retitled Electric, sold in massive quantities and, bingo, everybody was happy.
If you’re into both Love and Electric, and even Sonic Temple, but didn’t already get it as part of the Rare Cult boxed set or on the B-sides of the Electric singles and The Manor Sessions EP, Peace will be a revelation. While all of the songs that are also on Electric sound very different, like something from Love but with even more atmosphere, the original versions of such songs as “Peace Dog,” “Aphrodisiac Jacket,” “Bad Fun,” and especially “Electric Ocean” are noticeably improved over the Electric versions, while “Love Removal Machine” and “Wild Flower,” while very different, are just as good. Even cooler, Peace includes a clutch of tracks — “Love Trooper,” “Conquistador,” “Groove Co.,” and the masterful “Zap City” — that didn’t get rerecorded, but should’ve. Only “Outlaw” seems to be improved by Rubin’s raw production, but even in the context of Peace it works well.
Peace is an invaluable addition to The Cult’s catalogue, and a must-have for most fans, especially of their Love album.

The Cult - Love [4xCD Omnibus Edition]

Despite the heady heights of success scaled by The Cult during the arena rock years from 1987 until their break-up in 1995, their second album Love is by far their best. Originally released in 1985, there simply isn’t a bad song on here, and evergreen rock anthems such as Rain and the iconic She Sells Sanctuary are probably their best known and best loved tracks.
Love could arguably be called a transitional album. The band’s first effort, 1984’s Dreamtime, was rooted in the emerging post-punk and goth-rock underground scene. Love represented a quantum leap forward, but their sound had yet to be distilled into the pure hard rock of 1987’s Electric. Ian Astbury’s soaring vocals remained much the same, but Love introduced some Led Zeppelin-sized ambition and sonic scope.
Big Neon Glitter and Hollow Man are typical of the album’s outright gothic moments, and the band’s core audience accepted The Cult’s new-found rockist tendencies with good grace – there was still plenty of reassuringly brooding atmosphere to keep them happy. Although the title track and the psychedelia-drenched Phoenix were a heavy hint at things to come, overall Love straddles the rock/goth divide with peerless skill.
Black Angel and the exquisite Brother Wolf, Sister Moon show the band to be equally adept at ballads. The sheer variety on display also highlights just how mature their writing was. After all, Astbury and Duffy had yet to hit 25 when Love was released. To the public at large, Love may be all about the big hit singles Rain and She Sells Sanctuary, but write off the rest at your peril.
Re-mastered from the original studio analogue tapes, this four-disc box set is a feast for fans. Aside from the original album, there’s a disc of remixes and non-album B sides, a disc of previously unreleased early demos and a disc recorded live in 1985 on the Love tour. Add a 48-page book with unseen contact sheets from the album photo session and a mass of other material assembled by Astbury and Duffy and you have the ultimate version of one of the greatest British rock records of the 80s.

The Cult – Love

1985's Love displayed a marked improvement over the Cult's early material, and though it remains underappreciated in America (worldwide it was a smash), this exceptional record has actually aged better than the band's more notorious (and equally important) releases: Electric and Sonic Temple. Equal parts psychedelic hard rock and new wave goth, the songs on Love emanate a bright guitar sheen, tight arrangements, crisp drumming, and a command performance from vocalist Ian Astbury, who as usual says a lot more with less than most singers. Overall, the album benefits from a wonderful sense of space, thanks in large part to guitarist Billy Duffy (who is much more subdued here than on future releases), whose restraint is especially notable on "Revolution" and the remarkably uncluttered title track. Duffy also provides compelling melodies ("Hollow Man," "Revolution"), driving riffs ("Nirvana," "The Phoenix"), and even a U2-like intro to "Big Neon Glitter." Also on offer is the near-perfect "She Sells Sanctuary" and the smash hit "Rain," quite possibly the band's most appealing single ever. Considering the musical schizophrenia that would plague each subsequent Cult release, Love just may be the band's purest moment.

Spiritwalker

Ian Astbury talks about “Spiritwalker”.

That’s paraphrasing a Native American prayer song that some anthropologist deciphered, a traditional song. I’d taken some of that and melded it with… maybe Buffy Sainte-Marie’s song “Starwalker.” That’s probably where the title came from, because I remember listening to Buffy Sainte-Marie at that time, and it was just so exotic and otherworldly. She was very present when she sang, and I felt very connected to her voice and her music. It had such incredible dignity, and it was so different from everything else we were hearing, where it was distorted and angular and violent and dark and here was this voice with an angelic quality. I think that was part of the liberation and breaking through, and probably the optimism that went into things like “She Sells Sanctuary.” We found that optimism, but we had to dig for it. We had to dig for those jewels.

These are archetypal things I was picking up from discovering things like Joseph Campbell and Buffy Sainte-Marie or even Jim Morrison. All these things were flying around, and the songs “Spiritwalker” and “She Sells Sanctuary” are quite similar, in a way. In fact, “Spiritwalker” was going to be a Southern Death Cult song, but they didn’t want to do it for whatever reason, so I said, “Fine, I’m leaving, and I’m taking my songs with me.”

Live Dreamtime

On Sunday 20th May 1984 The Cult played a show at the Lyceum Theatre in London, UK. The show was recorded and filmed and later released in the UK as a free album with initial 30,000 copies of the Dreamtime LP and also as side 2 of the Dreamtime cassette. In November 1996 ‘Dreamtime Live at the Lyceum’ was remastered, and the full show released on video and CD.

Sometimes there isn’t much left to be said about a live performance that was captured on video in 1984. They’re either dreadful or awesome and everyone has an opinion. Today I’m going to let you sit back in your easy chair, open a beer, relax and just enjoy one of the most outstanding live videos of a band in their prime.

I Will Have My Dreamtime

Image-wise, the Cult still weren't entirely there yet, as the band photos show. Ian Astbury's bandana is more dated than anything else. But it's Billy Duffy's look (a Duran Duran/Spandau Ballet wannabe, down to the haircut and suit) which is terribly amusing in context. Musically, though, on their full-length debut, the Cult were pretty much on their way. Duffy's dramatic, spaghetti Western-tinged, dark psychedelic guitar and Astbury's passionate semi-wailing set the tone from the start and throughout, while the Jamie Stewart/Nigel Preston rhythm section keeps the tribal/goth feeling running equally high. Indeed, Goth is still stalking the band's effo

rts whether the members liked it or not: consider "83rd Dream" and its distinctly creeped-out introduction, Astbury's vocals fed through extra effects. If there's not as much in the way of blunt power chording as later, Dreamtime is still loaded with a variety of moody, energetic joys. "Spiritwalker" is especially fantastic, Preston's rolling drums and Duffy's epic, crystalline guitar not that far off from what U2 was going after, but (arguably) with even more appeal. Add in Astbury's explosive singing, and it's a definite treat through and through. The other strong tracks include the title effort, which may reference the native Australian concept of time, but is more about wearing long hair and tripping on the shamanic vibes, and the who-else-but-the-Cult invocations of mythic America in "Go West," "Horse Nation," and "A Flower in the Desert." If everything is sometimes too shrilly and dramatic for easy digestion, one can't fault the band for energy, and given that they would shortly improve all around, Dreamtime is still an attractive enough listen.