Under the midnight sun

"Rock's unquenchable melodramatists have the fire in their eyes still. These are suitably apocalyptic times to welcome a new Cult album. Made in 2020-21 and released into a burning world, Under The Midnight Sun drips with portent and dense instrumentation, signifying a tonal re-alignment from the revitalising raw powerage of 2012's Choice Of Weapon and 2016's Hidden City ... The LP title comes from Astbury recalling the uncanny aura of Finland's Provinssirock festival, where the 'Love'-era Cult played in 1986. 'Under The Midnight Sun' invests those primal energies with the wisdom of age, creating something fresh and powerful".

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"A majestic return ... Some style components just don't change, and rightly the British rock group keenly hold on to their heavy rhythmic base coupled with mystical, dark atmospherics. While energy levels in recent years have faded, they continue to make up for it in nuance, using their skill to add crisp, sonic colour and finesse to their songs, and `Under the Midnight Sun' falls into that category ... The album shows The Cult taking their musicality, sonic tricks and experience to a new place, still retaining their identity, and this can only be a good thing".

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"Under the Midnight Sun is solid but also has a real shortcoming: It lacks musical diversity. Too many of these melodies are similar enough that they're indistinguishable from one another. On balance, jams such as "Outer Heaven," "Impermanence," and "Vendetta X" solidly reveal that this band still has plenty of creative dazzle left in the tank".

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