The cover of
The Cult’s second album Love struck me as purposefully sinister, satanic
maybe, when I first saw it in the mall record store. And then my best friend brought the record
home. The music was sinister, but in a
good way. The bass throbs and the
guitars play in the high frequencies only.
It was heavy metal for the goth set.
The singles
from the album, released in 1985, were in frequent rotation at the underage
dance clubs we used to go to. The
fortune cookie smell of the fog pumped into the room, the lights flashing, dancing
with your eyes half-closed. Listen to
“The Rain” and you’ll know what I mean.
Close your eyes and you can see the strobe lights flashing.
But the record isn’t just
good for those sorts of memories. It
still stands up as a classic. Though
“She Sells Sanctuary” is overplayed now on retro radio. The combination of
straight-ahead rock elements with darkness of gothic rock was one I would
continue to search for in new music. The Cult moved to just straight-ahead rock
with their next release, Electric in 1986. It was a great record if you were also a fan
of AC-DC, but it was all downhill for The Cult after this.
No comments:
Post a Comment