Beyond Good And Evil - Cult (The) > Reviews > Astbury and Duffy re-enter their Sonic Temple

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	-
Disadvantages:	-

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Well can you remember what you were doing on that sad day back in August 1994? Grown men were seen with their lips trembling, women kept their children indoors, the FTSE fell 500 points and the BBC played only solemn music for the rest of the day. It was.............The Day That The Cult Split Up.

Yea verily, Britain's favourite rock band had decided to call it a day. After six great albums they were no more. We were to be left stranded in a wilderness with only pisspoor bands like Bush and the false dawn of Britpop to guide us through. I shook my head sadly, turned away and began to reinvestigate my old record collection.

Come the new milennium both Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy buried the hatchet and headed out to Hawaii to team up once again with Bob Rock to bring out another album. I don't know if the similarities with 1989's "Sonic Temple" release were intentional, but you have the same producer, the same sound and almost the same cover as that latter record. By all accounts they had 60 songs to take into the studios with them so this had to be good or else surely The Cult were finished for good!!

Well not only did the record turn out to be excellent, it is also probably their finest to date. Bursting full of no-nonsense, primeval yet modern, ball-busting, boiling hard rock, the sort that only The Cult know how to do. With the fine rock baritone of Ian Astbury, the power chords of Billy Duffy and the dead-on drumming of Matt Sorum (ex of G&R and now Velvet Revolver) the boys deliver blistering heavy rock reminiscent of both Sabbath and Zeppelin at their peak. For a modern Cd it only has 12 tracks but that's fine by me - no filler.

Some come once again, dear reader, into the Sonic Temple revisited.

Full track listing:

War (The Process) / The Saint / Rise / Take The Power / Breathe / Nico / American Gothic / Ashes And Ghosts / Shape The Sky / Speed Of Light / True Believers / My Bridges Burn

.........one mention of The Cult and most people will immediately think of She Sells Sanctuary, that goth/metal classic hit from 1985. With careful listening, the bones of that song can be heard several times throughout the tracks here, most shamelessly in the third track Rise; and again but in a slowed down mode for the later Ashes And Ghosts. Well, what band haven't reprised their greatest hits at some stage in their career?

Whilst the opener, War, sounds a little lacklustre, it's made up for with The Saint, a bone-crushing tribute to that key 90's instrument that is the down-tuned six-string. Rise was taken as the first single from this album and it hurtles along like a greyhound out of the traps! Clever vocal interchanges make this one of The Cult's finest tunes.

Take The Power is a slower rocker that seems to take a liberal dose of hip-hoppers Public Enemy's song Fight The Power and amps it up. A bit of a let-down really, but once again it's right back on track with Breathe, another slower number but with much more menace. "Breathe you bastard, breathe, straight into the sun!!" sings Astbury, and I think this is about the Vietnam War because he also mentions about "55,000 flowers for the heroes, scattered at his feet to satisfy his ego,". Every Cult album has its big set-piece number and here we have Nico, which echoes earlier Cult epics Edie (Ciao Baby) and Sweet Soul Sister, the Nico in question is the old singer with The Velvet Underground who'd not long died. Duffy's guitar at the chorus sends a shiver down the spine and this is a good tribute.

American Gothic and Ashes And Ghosts both reprise the sound of early 80's Cult, all Astbury vocals coming in and out the mix together with wall-of-noise guitars. The funky little Shape The Sky is a surprise and delight to hear, all pagan lyrics and treated vocals. Nice one. The big widescreen production on Speed Of Light perfectly frames the song's soaring, expansive guitar, with a little trip-hop thrown in for good measure..."black California!!!!"

Another big number is All True Believers, with its theme of moving on and looking forward, leads into the shattering finale My Bridges Burn, which features Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols playing guitar and singing. Here the band lay down a steamroller groove "don't be a zero....be a hero...a Sex Pistol, yeah, that's a hero..." a perfect closing track.

Sadly though after one tour that was it and the band went into cold storage again. Astbury now fronts the Doors: 21st Century and last I knew Duffy was touring with Dead Men Walking, along with Mike Peters (ex Alarm) and that geezer out of Spear Of Destiny. I suppose we'll have to wait another seven years for some more new stuff, so this will have to do in the meantime. If you've never heard them before but you like stuff like QOTSA or Audioslave this will be right up your street. Get happy.