Shine so hard
Ian and Billy’s eleventh offers light in the darkness. By Keith Cameron.
The Cult’s Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy: still have the fire in their eyes.
The Cult
★★★★
Under The Midnight Sun
BLACK HILL. CD/DL/LP
IN 2009, three years into his band’s latest re-formation, Ian Astbury predicted that The Cult wouldn’t make another album. Dropped by their record label after just one LP, Astbury didn’t fancy “spending a year and a half in the studio arguing over agendas” on a format he considered “dead”. But perspectives change. The third Cult album since the singer’s doomy prophecy opens with Astbury whispering “Forget what you know” and Billy Duffy unfurling a hallmark display of sensuous riff calligraphy. This is Mirror, a song where “nature runs low”, “shadows are long”, “nightbirds croon”, and Ian Astbury helpfully signposts his new record’s location in heartland Cult territory by howling “Love! Love! Love!”. Rock’s unquenchable melodramatists have the fire in their eyes still.