Whether you want to tag this New York boy-girl duo as dream pop,
twee,
noise pop, or
psychedelic pop, it is easier to just lump them into
indie pop and say they have a nostalgic or “throwback” quality to them. Regardless of tags, their cutesy sound is unique and pleasing to the ears.
The Show
The Visuals
So while I was excited for this show, I didn’t anticipate how absurdly visually-rewarding the show was going to be. I will pat myself on the back for immediately realizing that the 4 screens behind the stage would be used to display static, to go along with the theme of the album.
But I did not foresee the use of a projector to paint the entire room with beautiful psychedelic
colors and patterns synched to the music. The effect was to flood the entire room with incredible visuals to coincide with songs; slowly cascading colorful sprites for the slow bits and spastic noisy geometric static when the song picked up. To add to the effect, the projections had to permeate the fog, which gave it an added trippy dimension. I picture that this type of affordable, accessible, and incredibly impressive visualization is the kind of thing that early psychedelic bands, maybe Jefferson Airplane only dreamed of. It was quite cool. By far the best visuals I have seen in a while.
The effect was even amplified by the lucky coincidence that the stage’s backdrop is red (as opposed to black), which rendered the projections in red, highlighted elements in the foreground, and gave the projected visuals even more perceived depth.
Here are some vids I shot that showcase this awesome effect far better than the pics (but be sure to crank the quality all the way up to 1080P!)
The Set
The
Setlist for the show shows a 50/50 split of the 2 albums, which was a nice balance of old favorites and promotion of the new album. Besides what I thought was generally too loud of
everything, except her vocals which were just a little drowned-out, I thought they translated very well live, sounding just like the albums. However, I did feel that the songs don’t lend themselves to much crowd participation. Even the most exciting parts of their hits just leave you kind of bobbing your head and swaying like the back-up singers of a Doo-Wop group. This is more to do with the nature of their music than their performance. Their performance was great, however there was a noticeable lack of the band head-banging and hair-thrashing, as their album-art leads you to expect.
So while they were spot on, and it was an overall good show, I didn’t find the show to be that fulfilling except for the stunning visuals. I do recommend catching their show on this tour if you can. If for no other reason, just to see the visuals, which were worth the ticket price alone.
The Albums
Cults - Cults
Their
self-titled debut is a very novel and refreshing album that I was fairly obsessed with for a while. It has a consistent psychologically dark underlying theme to the lyrics with samples of famous cult leaders Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and Patty Hearst embedded into the songs, all hidden underneath the sugary-sweet vocals and happy-go-lucky percussion that gives the album its unique feeling.
Although most of the snippets of the cult leaders preaching and brainwashed ramblings of cult members are distorted beyond comprehension with reverb and other effects, I feel their inclusion augments the overall creepy feel of the album and add a cohesion that pulls it together into what can almost be mistaken for a concept album, (although it isn't). I’ll just say they really know how to make the most out of a motif, considering most of the album focuses on milder themes such as relationships, coping with life, and skeletons in the closet, rather than mass suicide and grape Kool-Aid.
Check out this cool music video for
Go Outside, in which the band members are almost-flawlessly superimposed into footage from
Jonestown. It really encompasses the vibe of the album.
Abducted – Sets the tone of the album, starting off with...
I knew right then that I'd been abducted,
I knew right then that he would be taking my heart.
... giving me the impression she has found herself under the spell of
stockholm syndrome and has fallen for her captors.
You Know What I Mean – a beautiful slow saunter through feelings of dysphoria, fear, and loneliness.
Bad things happen to the people you love,
And you'll find yourself praying up to heaven above,
But honestly I never had much sympathy,
Cause those bad things, I always saw them coming for me.
Cults - Static
Having given new album,
Static, a fair amount of listens, I would say while it stays true to their distinctive sound, it is lacking in something that I have yet to put my finger on. Seeing the songs live with the fantastic visuals synced to the audio, gave me a little more appreciation for the album, but I’m still not as fond of it as their debut. It’s a good album: I wouldn’t say great. Maybe I just really liked the eerie, dark, mysteriousness of the 1
st album.
However, I do love how they chose an animated
GIF image to represent the album in the digital realm. It has caught my eye on various websites. It’s a bit oxymoronic and
a lot of genius that they chose a dynamic image to represent an album dubbed "Static". Brilliant marketing on their part, but they aren’t the first to do it (REM
did it 1st, relatively recently).
