I’m not convinced the band Cults are as good as everyone is making them out to be. Like the strips of magnesium you used to burn in 5th form Science; they are bright and fun and everybody comes over to take a look…
Cults – Cults
I’m not convinced Cults are as good as everyone is making them out to be.
The same way I didn’t (and don’t) think The xx, Florence and the Machine and Passion Pit are as good as everybody thought they were. Such “buzz” artists are like the strips of magnesium you used to burn in 5th form Science; they are bright and fun and everybody comes over to take a look, but about 20 seconds later they are smouldering in the sink and everybody just gets back to being a bored 15-year old boy.
It’s not really Cults’ fault (I assume) that they’ve popped out of nowhere. When something small gets big really quickly we are hurriedly forced to make a call about whether they are “good” or not. And in this day and age where everything is “free”, it better be damn good or we’ll just get back to watching cats (or cat-obsessed girls) on Youtube.
Cults’ self-titled debut isn’t necessarily a “bad” record, it’s just that when you take away the hype the record doesn’t shine in any other way that a hundred other similar sounding bands might.
It sounds “indie”, and that is “cool” right now. Its female-orientated lyricism detailing the vulnerability of what it means to be a girl (I don’t really know much about that, but I’ve read a few books), the honest-to-God neediness, and the paradoxical-yet-not-forceful ‘not-needing’ of the opposite sex are all intriguing – but not quite compelling. The pet anger seems slightly insincere (despite its profanity) – “I can never heal myself enough for you/I can never be myself, so fuck you!”(‘Never Heal Myself’), and musically the record tends to just take over-wrought vintage jangle and use it for its own cutesy little end.
I may be venting a bit; there are a few thoughtful moments. The Beach Boys-influenced waltz, ‘You Know What I Mean’, builds into a nicely-insane heartbreak ditty (“Please, please come and save me/ Tell me what’s wrong with my brain/ ‘Cause I’ve seem to have lost it”), the boy-girl interplay revealing the narrative in ‘Bumper’ is romantic and sweet, and the hip hop-tanged beats in ‘Oh My God’ liven things up a bit. These are all nice things, but overall the record is pretty bland fare and I’m not so sure it deserves the airing that it seems to be getting.
Cults may be the making of a band that is going to be really good in the future. We can only wait.
By Theo Sangster 20 June 2011.
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