This review will likely be a combination of (me) romanticizing with a band you’ve (I’ve) stuck with since the beginning (and then some) and the evolution of what may soon be a heavily celebrated pop duo. So if you feel hearing something about a band that’s pretty neat, bear with me. A little over a year ago, Cults blew up with three little songs–one a tad more than the others: “Go Outside”. This still stands out as one of the best songs of 2010. However, things are different this year. They have backing. Tremendous backing. Like, “holy shit they got signed to Sony” level backing.
It’s probably for the best that I get all my personal mumbo-jumbo out of the way for the sake of the reader’s interest. One unusually hazy night in February or March 2010, I heard “Go Outside” for the first time. Matched with a new desire to start creating music videos and partnered again with my over-the-top love for music, it made more than enough sense to make this song my first little venture into this area of filmmaking.
One weekend in March, I went up to Donner Lake (near to Lake Tahoe) with my cousin and we shot this thing with a low-battery handycam in less than an hour. Eventually, I managed to piece together the scenes from all three venues that I shot at and uploaded the video in early April. The rate of views the video was receiving wasn’t much of a shock to me: there weren’t a ton to begin with but there were enough to make me feel the song was popular. Over the last year, the video has become something of a landmark to me; for memories, for my exploration into film as well as music, and this band more than anything else. Since April 9 (and the date of writing this), my video has picked up nearly 100,000 views. Oh yeah, here’s that video, or whatever.
My point of all that was to explain that I contain a certain level of personal attachment to this band, and not to be all mushy, I don’t know where I’d be in my life or area of cinematic expertise without them (plus, it’s kind of ironic since they were both film students) so take what I say with a grain of salt. Perhaps I am biased and the least fit man on Fermata Over Whole Rest to write this review, however, I am confident that this sort of experience and knowledge of the band could be considered an advantage.
Cults contains all of their past songs, sans “The Curse” from their original three-song EP, but each has received a recording and production makeover. “Abducted”, the intro track, is an abrasive, heavy way to start the album. They don’t want you to think that this is some sort of sunshiney band lyrically, because let’s be honest, they really aren’t. The majority of what they write about is depressing and above all, bitter. This bitterness, though, is disguised by a widely appealing sound filled with xylophones, clean drums, gleaming guitars and keys, and above all, the innocent voice of frontwoman Madeline Follin, whose voice drives Cults and keeps its identity somewhat rooted in the 60s/70s pop-song vibe.
Even discounting the songs that made Cults a music staple over the last year, this album provides more than I had expected. I still think “Go Outside” is the best track on Cults, but you could probably guess that hearing that song so much through showing it to friends, trying to gain inspiration for the video, and constantly backtracking in the editing process–this song is apart of me at this point. Either way, “Abducted”, “You Know What I Mean”, and “Bumper” are on par with the material that made many as well as myself fall in love with their sound. However, even with all this great material Cults ends at a fairly abrupt 34 minutes, so I could have gone for maybe one or two more songs. I can’t wait to see what else this band has up their sleeve in the future because I’m curious to see if this is something that can last, but if it can, let me tell you that Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion will be well off as perhaps the best pop example of comparable quality and popularity.
WINNER: Cults by Cults
WHY: It is a fine collection of catchy, fun tunes that one can also take seriously, and that’s a combination that I cannot contest.
Fermata over Whole Rest 