The Cult - Hidden City: Still a force to be reckoned with
They’ve teamed up again with producer Bob Rock, who was behind the controls on the band’s biggest commercial success, Sonic Temple.
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Hide AdIt’s unlikely Hidden City will match that album’s sales, that time has gone, but it reveals the 50-something rockers have not lost the swagger of old.
Opening tracks Dark Energy and No Love Lost set a blistering pace - the latter ushered in with a classic spectral refrain from guitarist Billy Duffy which sets minds back to early gems such as Rain and She Sells Sanctuary before an army of Duffys form a grunge chorus and singer Ian Astbury soars above it, still in fine voice.
The album does lose its way a little with ballads In Blood and Birds Of Paradise both striving for an epic sound but falling ponderously short.
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Hide AdHowever, things pick up with G O A T, Duffy’s sinewy guitar writhing like a snake as the band rock out with a stripped back sound that recalls their classic 1987 album, Electric, and Deeply Ordered Chaos where the guitars attack like machine gun salvos.
The Cult is still a force to be reckoned with.