A smitten couple making sunny pop with a dark heart ? this debut album could end up soundtracking your summer
As is the way these days, Brooklyn duo Cults created an online buzz last year simply by having no information available. There was no MySpace, no official website ? just a Bandcamp page and an amazing song (the spooky '60s do-wop of Go Outside, released, obviously, on vinyl only). Googling them wasn't an option, with all kinds of slightly sinister results leading you further away from the sunshine melodies created by Brian Oblivion (possibly not his real name) and his girlfriend Madeline Follin (probably is).
The band name was apt, however, not least because beneath the surface level sweetness ? cooing backing vocals, big drum claps, vintage keys and gorgeous melodies ? lurked a darker heart. Album opener Abducted finds Follin and Oblivion depicting a fractured relationship ("He took all my weed and left me to bleed"), using abduction as a metaphor for love over a driving, bass-heavy rattle, while Go Outside opens with a sample taken from a speech by infamous cult leader Jim Jones. Even the closing Rave On, complete with its surprisingly robust arms-aloft chorus, comes clouded with a kind of creeping ennui. At its heart, Cults is a pop album (the band are signed to Lily Allen's new imprint, after all), drawing influences from Phil Spector, Motown and the lo-fi aesthetic that still dominates a lot of music blogs. Also, if there's a better album this year to listen to in a sun-drenched field come festival season then we've yet to hear it.
Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/24/cults-debut-album-stream
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