CD Odyssey Disc 606: The Cult

I worked a long day today and I don’t really want to spend more time in front of a word processor. Then again, it isn’t the early rounds that keep you writing creatively – it’s those later rounds where you’re weary as hell but still up for the fight. So take the damn stool out of the ring and pass me my damned mouth guard – here’s the next review.

Disc 606 is….Sonic Temple

Artist: The Cult

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover? A classic rock guitar pose is struck. Sadly the guitar in the guy’s hands is a bit underwhelming. I think he should’ve gone with the Flying ‘V’, at least for the cover photo.

How I Came To Know It: When I was in University my good friend Cameron loved the Cult and he played the hell out of both “Sonic Temple” and “Love” in a beat up grey sedan he owned. Since Cameron was one of the few people in our circle of friends with a car, I heard the Cult a lot. Of course, that was on tape. When I met Sheila I found out she was also a fan of the Cult from way back, and she bought them on CD.

How It Stacks Up:  We have two Cult CDs, just like Cameron in the day they are “Love” and this one (“Sonic Temple”). I really like a couple of songs off of “Love” but overall, I’m going to go with the less popular choice, and choose “Sonic Temple” as the best.

Rating:  3 stars

As I mentioned earlier, I knew this album mostly from a lot of forced listening in my buddy’s car. This, coupled with a lot of radio overplay and my friend’s unshakeable belief that The Cult were better than my favourite band (Blue Oyster Cult), made it hard to like them in the day.

Fortunately sufficient time has passed that I can once again listen to this album with an open heart. For the most part I enjoyed the experience. In fact, it reminded me of a lot of good memories driving around in that old grey sedan he got from his grandmother; we were young and headstrong and looking for trouble and “Sonic Temple” was as good a soundtrack as any for that.

Maybe it was all that early exposure in the car, but to me “Sonic Temple” is an album perfectly suited to driving. It is straight ahead rock and roll, up tempo and to the point, with lots of soaring vocals and guitar. The big hit was “Fire Woman” which is as good an example as any of both experiences.

All of the songs show of the Cult’s main selling point to some degree or other – that being front man Ian Astbury’s voice. Astbury has great range, and his vocals feel like they are hanging easy and relaxed in the back of his throat even as he fills the room with a breezy post-hippy power note. When the chorus of “Sweet Soul Sister” hits it is so big and boisterous in Astbury’s hands that you forgive a lot of the other more forgettable aspects of the song.

The rest of the band I found merely OK. They are tight enough but there isn’t anything that stood out for me. Part of the problem here is the late eighties/early nineties production that made a lot of CDs at that time sound low and a bit muddy. Although I didn’t know it while I was listening, when looking at the liner notes I was not at all surprised to see Bob Rock was the producer. The man responsible for a lot of bad hair metal records of the same vintage obviously worked hard to wreck this record’s sound.

Fortunately, for the most part he failed and the songs come out alright. The Cult’s visceral approach to the music creates a “Rock to mud” sound that gives it a bit of a grunge quality. The whole experience gives a layered effect that works, although I wanted it generally louder in a way that simply turning up the volume on my headphones didn’t deliver.

My favourite song on the album is “Edie (Ciao Baby)” which I found out yesterday is also Sheila’s favourite. It is a bittersweet song about Edie Sedgwick, an artist and Andy Warhol associate from the Factory days who died of a drug overdose at the age of 28.

I didn’t know any of that until while trying to figure out what the song was about exactly I found some Warhol references and then – bam! Internet! Anyway, if you look her up you’ll find the story of a troubled and tragic talent. I don’t know why the song includes the lyric “Ciao Baby!” It feels a bit forced, but Sheila suggested that might have been a catch phrase of Edie’s. It’s as good a theory as any I could come up with.

Anyway, the song is beautiful and a lot more lyrically meaningful than most of the Cult’s songs which are mostly variations on “give ‘er!”

The first half of this album is a lot better than the second, and I expect if I had this on vinyl it wouldn’t get flipped to the B side that often. Fortunately the good songs are good enough to hold this record at a solid 3 stars, at least for me. Hardly “Blue Oyster Cult good”, but solid all the same.

Well, until next time – ciao, baby!

Best tracks: Fire Woman, American Horse, Edie (Ciao Baby), Sweet Soul Sister