He's gone crazy, completely crazy trying to POLL the American horse - The Cult - Sonic Temple

Gotta go with Fire Woman 'cause it still rips. Billy at his most fun guitar-wise. Sweet Soul Sister is a nice cut, too.

I love this album, listen to it all the time. My fave might be ... I dunno, Sweet Soul Sister? This album is like a hybrid of the goth-psych of Love (Sun King, Soul Asylum) and the big dumb rock of Electric (American Horse, New York City, Wake Up Time for Freedom). Mostly the latter, really, but it sounds absolutely *massive*.

I was a hug fan of Electric when this came out, so it took me awhile to warm up to it. Strange though how many of the songs pop right into my head though I haven't heard them in forever.

I'm finally seeing Ian and Billy do their thing in a couple of weeks here -- I couldn't turn down the chance to see them do Death Cult and early era Cult stuff on top of everything else -- and yeah, this album was my real intro to them after having heard about them but not really heard them in 1987 or so (just occasional mentions in things like Sam Goody's in-house mag or the like). To my mind it's pretty clearly a blueprint for what Bob Rock did with Metallica two years later: "Oh you want a massive sounding modern stomp of a hard rock/metal album? Here ya go!" (And per Keyes's point, without Electric and Rubin's own particular brief there I had no immediate comparison; instead I pretty obviously thought of Zep plus Nothing's Shocking.) I mean all this as praise, I very much remember obsessing over "Fire Woman" a little bit there in spring 1989.

The Mission's Children while I'm thinking of it as well -- all the "Kashmir" stomps playing out across all this time/place. Which is why I like "Soul Asylum" the song more than the band.

Who throws more "Yeah!"s into a given song, Ian Astbury or Jon Spencer? (Dark horse competitor: Rob Zombie.)

I remember liking Electric more at the time, but I spent the late summer and fall of 1990 in L.A. and my younger female cousin, a high school cheerleader who was big into hair metal generally, loved this album and played it all the time. Combine that with the hilarious experience of interviewing Astbury (many years later) and I will always have more affection for the Cult than I probably should.

(Astbury has the brainpower of a sheepdog, but is 1000% bought into the rock-singer-as-shaman thing; he's a blast to talk to.)

Once you realize that's just his thing, you roll with it. Also I will forever credit the man -- back in lockdown days when Mike Garson organized an online tribute concert/show for Bowie on the fifth anniversary of his death, most everyone involved, understandably enough, did various 70s highlights, maybe early 80s at most. Ian Astbury was not only the only one to have the relative gumption to do something NOT in that time frame, he did fucking "Lazarus" of all things, and it was a great performance. Eternal credit!

I dunno, I've read interviews with Astbury where he seemed very bright and also self-aware! The last time I saw them I could have sworn he made a comment about his belly, along the lines of "I'm 55, not 20, I'm going to eat and drink what I want, who gives a fuck about my belly?" (I paraphrase.)

I saw this tour and they played at the Long Beach Arena. I remember he passed me off that night. Ian was putting down most of the audience that night saying something like were a metal band and hate goth. I was thinking, Love is the only album I love by them. They also played the Scream club that week but missed that show. I do remember seeing David Bowie the month before and New Order with Echo and the Bunnymen a week later and had so much more fun at those shows...

Will have to relisten before voting.

Bob Rock doing the production for this album for The Cult and then the band opening for Metallica had to be how they hooked up with Rock for the Black Album. Matt Sorum drummed for the Cult on that tour and is how he got spotted to be in GNR when they punted out Adler.

I saw The Cult open for Metallica on the And Justice for All tour at Deer Creek back in the day.

Sonic Temple and Ceremony are the big arena rawk albums by the Cult. I did not really dig Ceremony and that was when I checked out. Electric was a big party record when I was in high school. That was a hip tape on the southside of Muncie back in the late 80s.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

just came here to say

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE

I have a story, posting about seeing them for this tour lead me down a rabbit hole. I looked up the concert on setlist and it showed Guns N Roses too but that made no sense to me because GNR would be the headliner right? I have a group chat with some high school friends and so I asked if anyone remembers seeing the Cult in Long Beach in 1987. Before a follow up question, one of my friends said I'm still pissed off we got there late and missed GNR. Wait, what? Then he said do you remember afterwards we went to the Scream club and saw Jane's Addiction on that same night? Mind blown!

I relistened up to "New York City," voting "Sweet Soul Sister,"

Listened to this a bunch in the past week. Voted Sun King, but there's so much good stuff on here. The front half is particularly excellent, but there are treasures on side 2. Soul Asylum is massive - I wonder what Pirner and crew thought. Just found out that the deep voice in the bridge of New York City is Iggy Pop!

GNR apparently opened for a bunch of folks on the Appetite tour. I remember them touring with Aerosmith on their Permanent Vacation comeback tour, but I guess they also opened for The Cult, Mötley Crüe, Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden.

Oh yeah. Iron Maiden had some words about that.

You would have thought Astbury would be up for joining them on “Run To The Hills.”

GNR was 'supposed' to open for Maiden the time I saw them in the 80s, but we got Waysted instead. They were not that good, but I think the PA was running on like 20% power on their set. This was at the old Market Square Arena which was a pretty darn good basketball arena to see a show.

GNR was headlining after they dropped off the Maiden tour. I do remember they opened for Aerosmith at MSA but I never saw that one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Funny that "Wake Up Time for Freedom" got no votes, because I love that dumb track, too.

I'm surprised that so many songs got a vote, maybe I should have finished listening. I think Cult fans land in two groups, before or after Electric. Despite having riffs for days some of the songs just aren't good. There is nothing on here, taking away the singles, that touches a song like "Love" for example and that song has riffs too...

I love "Love" (the album) and like "Electric" and "Sonic Temple" a lot, though they are very different from "Love." In a sense "Sonic Temple" is a synthesis of the previous two. Personally, I've never gotten into anything post-"Sonic Temple."

I always thought the patronizing Xgau review of this album was funny:

Sonic Temple [Sire, 1989]
Having risen from cultdom as a joke metal band metal fans were too dumb to get, they transmute into a dumb metal band. Dumb was the easy part. Ha ha. B-

Christgau: Rarely right, but never wronger than when he's talking about metal (or any rock harder than the Rolling Stones, frankly).

I think it's his review sequel to "Electric," which he (and others) praised ironically but he was still otm here, imo:

Electric [Sire, 1987]
Rick Rubin meets the doom fops of the former Southern Death Cult and concocts the metal dreams are made of--Zep for our time, supposedly. One reason it's a great joke is that in 2087 almost nobody will be able to tell it from the real thing. The other reason it's a great joke is that right now almost anybody can. Direct comparison reveals that Jimmy Page's thunderclap riffs, Robert Plant's banshee yowls, and John Bonham's ka-boom ka-boom are just as hard to replicate as you thought they were. I hear Steppenwolf (an unconvincing "Born to Be Wild"), Cream ("Tales of Brave Ulysses" as "Aphrodisiac Jacket"), and Aerosmith--fop but no fool, Ian Astbury apes Steve Tyler rather than the unapproachable Plant. I also hear lots of Zep simplified--no sagas, no tempo shifts, no blues. Inspirational Verse: "Zany antics of a beat generation/In their wild search for kicks." B+

You're right, though, Christgau is terrible on metal. I think it's because he hates prog, and a lot of metal codes prog. The Cult doesn't code prog at all, but they do code metal, especially this era. Leather, bikes, loud guitars, etc. It's an odd mix of goth, hard rock, lil metal, lil psych. I think maybe critics of the dinosaur era, that witnessed the birth of metal, they barely made a distinction between, say, Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden.

Belated but since this was the latest Cult thread to be revived, the show this past Monday was a treat. Ian is on his own trip to a degree -- the voice is still there but in shorter bursts, and maybe he's just always been that way live. Makes up for it with sheer energy (and he's aware per a comment he made at the end that he can be a bit erratic vocally). Billy is now a perfect grizzled guitar vet in the best way, he was absolutely on it, and the rhythm section's been with them for years now so they held it down equally well. Death Cult set was great fun -- besides the EP cuts I got "Resurrection Joe" and "Spirit Walker" among other things, to my delight -- and the fact that they played "The Witch" meant I was perfectly happy.