{"id":96244,"date":"2022-10-07T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T23:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=96244"},"modified":"2022-10-18T14:20:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T13:20:03","slug":"album-review-the-cult-under-the-midnight-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-the-cult-under-the-midnight-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CULT – Under The Midnight Sun (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE CULT
Under The Midnight Sun<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nBlack Hill (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Somewhat channelling the labours of their 1985 album Love<\/em>, The Cult returns with its 11th full-length studio album.<\/p>\n

Overly compressed and mastered to death, Under The Midnight Sun<\/em> remains a rewarding experience in its subtle fluctuations. Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy remain the archetypal rock \u2018n\u2019 roll twosome, delivering the usual star spangled and swaggering Goth rock yet with less meat yet more jangle.<\/p>\n

Awash with wisdom, Under The Midnight Sun<\/em> steadily rises from the smouldering yet somewhat underwhelming opener \u2018Mirror\u2019 through to the steady throb of \u2018Vendetta X\u2019, the menace of \u2018Knife Through Butterfly Heart\u2019 and the closing noir title track.<\/p>\n

This album feels dark and haunting, and so those expecting a decidedly upbeat rock-out may be disappointed. Even so, it\u2019s still classy Cult as a sharp riff introduces us to \u2018A Cut Inside\u2019, another of those steadily ascending trips littered with Astbury\u2019s vocal glitter.<\/p>\n

\u2018Give Me Mercy\u2019 is another steady and overwhelmingly dusky hymn, while further shadowy depths are explored with the brooding tones of \u2018Impermanence\u2019, leaving only \u2018Outer Heaven\u2019 to flirt with those grandiose stadium rock nuances.<\/p>\n

Under The Midnight Sun<\/em> is a moody bugger of a record but one which dazzles sporadically while in the presence of its dark corners, not helped by the bland and overly black cover art. The band remains mesmeric, however, and it\u2019s still The Cult and I\u2019m still the fan.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE CULTUnder The Midnight Sun Black Hill (2022)Rating: 7.5\/10 Somewhat channelling the labours of their 1985 album Love, The Cult returns with its 11th full-length studio album. Overly compressed and mastered to death, Under The Midnight Sun remains a rewarding experience in its subtle fluctuations. Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy remain the archetypal rock \u2018n\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-the-cult"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96245,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96244\/revisions\/96245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}