Album Review: The Cult - "Under The Midnight Sun"

 

I'll be honest, a new Cult album wasn't something I was expecting in 2022. It's been over half a decade since the group's last effort (2016's Hidden City which was billed at the time as the final part of their 21st century trilogy) and with Billy Duffy seeming more preoccupied with a series of side projects of late and Ian Astbury mainly silent, I was beginning to wonder if this great beast might have breathed its last.

You can't keep a good Wolfchild down though and so 2022 sees the Cult returning once more with no less than their eleventh album. It's pretty clear that they're on good form here as well, deftly treading a tightrope between the gothic intensity of their earlier stuff and the big rock dynamics of their best selling material. It's there on the opening one two of the sinister Mirror and former single A Cut Inside and there's no denying it still works.

Overall though, Under The Midnight Sun is a bit of a mixed bag in places - Vendetta X weirdly reminds me a bit of the group's Born Into This album from a decade or so ago (sort of like a darker version of Dirty Little Rockstar) and sees them falter a little bit but the album's lead-off single Give Me Mercy rights matters with Astbury's swooping vocals and Duffy's sky-surfing riff. Outer Heaven meanwhile has a loose tribal kind of feel to it at the beginning before kicking into a solid mid-tempo rocker.

I have to be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about the six minute Knife Through A Butterfly Heart but credit to Astbury and Duffy, it's an atmospheric number which keeps your interest sufficiently enough to not outstay its welcome. Impermanence, however, is solid enough but maybe sounds a bit too similar to some of the earlier tracks to really stick in your head. Which just leaves the string-drenched melancholy of the title track to guide things home in decent enough style.

Under The Midnight Sun is a reasonable effort from Astbury and Duffy and there's plenty on here to keep longstanding Cult fans entertained with the group cherry picking styles from their varied back catalogue and blending them together well. There's just two complaints - firstly, at just eight tracks, this feels like it could honestly have been a little bit longer and secondly, for all the variety, this album's lacking a standout track a la She Sells Sanctuary or Lil' Devil or Sun King to really seal the deal of it being a great album. A solid effort rather than a spectacular one then but it does at least prove that the Cult are very much still out there and capable of putting up a solid fight in 2022.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)