"It's raining and the porno burns my eyes. Wipe away the tear with the skin from my hide."
Darker than their psychedelic, hard-rocking masterpiece Love, The Cult's first full-length recording, Dreamtime, is, in many ways, their most distinctive. Still several years from falling under the influence of Rick Rubin and his ambition to transform the band into an "alt" version of ACDC, Dreamtime sparkles with dark psychedelic overtones, spaghetti-western guitars, Post-Punk Grit, interesting arrangements, and some fine vocal performances by Ian Astbury. At this point in their development, The Cult's sound was clearly grounded in the more accessible end of the early-eighties Goth movement, and to their credit, on Dreamtime, they consistently use this influence as a jumping-off point to something new rather than an end in itself. While The Cult would further refine this intriguing sound for one more album, they would never match the uniqueness of what they achieved here.
Dreamtime (1996 Remastered Edition)
1. Horse Nation (3:45)
2. Spiritwalker (3:38)
3. 83rd Dream (3:38)
4. Butterflies (3:00)
5. Go West (3:59)
6. Gimmick (3:33)
7. A Flower in the Desert (3:43)
8. Dreamtime (2:47)
9. Rider in the Snow (3:11)
10. Bad Medicine Waltz (5:55)
Thank you for uploading the Cult albums! I had to get used to their sound a bit (maybe because of the hard rock elements?) ... Now really enjoying it! (yeah.)
ReplyDeleteIssi, I'm not a big hard-rock fan either, but I think my attraction to The Cult is that they have so much more to their sound than that, especially on "Dreamtime" and "Love." It was fun posting these because I hadn't thought of or listened to this band in quite awhile. Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteHell yea haven't heard these songs in ages Bad Medicine Waltz, Dreamtime, Spiritwalker are classics. Sounds damn good in lossless. Everytime I go to the record store in the hipster college section of town there is only Ceremony, Sonic Temple and S/T so people still dig the Cult. Rock on.
ReplyDeletedodo, "Dreamtime" is easily their most underrated album. It always gets overlooked because of "Love"
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, I’ve been listening to a lot of the old death cult stuff lately. One almost forgets about this in between stuff because, like you mentioned the hype over some of the more prominent albums. I don’t think I’ve seen this album in a record store more than maybe once.
ReplyDeleteHi Jeff, yes, I've noticed the same thing. I may be overstating the case, but I think "Dreamtime" is pretty close to the quality of "Love" and easily one of the more interesting hard rock records of that decade. Sounded pretty good to these ears the other night!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm gonna say it: I think Love is awful.
ReplyDeleteThere.
It was great being around back then, going to see some of the bands live at their peak, such as Death Cult(just missed 'em in Southern mode), Gene Loves Jezebel, Play Dead, Sisters ...
... but for me and my friend Nick who introduced me to so much of this music, Love was just one almighty wrong turn, and we just didn't get it.
Literally. End of Cult for us. Long time ago however, and seeing it up here I thought, okay I'll give it a whirl.
Nope, thought it was crap, and so, so, lacking compared to everything that came before. I, just, don't, see what you see.
No matter. THIS is a brilliant album and I played the double vinyl to death when it was released.
Personally I felt everything came together perfectly on the Ressurection Joe 12".
A slight aside here, but often in comments here bands get mentioned as underrated or long-forgotten, and rightly so, but after mentioning them above I want to highlight one band a little more, and who knows, maybe one day they might crop up.
Play Dead. Fuck are they a mighty band. Even when around they were in the shadows and never seemed to get the recognition other, lesser bands often got. Time has been very kind to their music and I still listen with awe. Perhaps their last album, Company of Justice, could rear it's head one day?!
On a roll here! Do you know Sleeping Dogs Wake? Let's turn our gaze away from album three onwards shall we. I only saw them live once but it was an unforgettable experience and after talking to them afterwards, also a rather sad one. Their first wonderful album had been out on One Little Indian for a good while and it is a joy to listen to. Truly fabulous. It had only sold a couple of hundred copies or so. Unbelievable.
Then they went and released Threnody and the world tilted a little on it's axis.
Also, bang up to date with another band you may like - Snowman. Does anyone even know they exist! FUCK what a band. Believe me, The Horse, the Rat, and the Swan, is a magnificent beast and I really feel it would delight those very discerning folks who visit hereabouts.
Please forgive this long post mentioning other bands; won't digress like this again. It's just that seeing the Dreamtime cover up here and remembering buying it, playing it incessantly, and seeing them perform it, really has just transported me back there for a little while.
Words obviously don't fail me(!)but you are genuinely creating a Dragons cave of unjealously-guarded gems here.
Be well,
M.
Yeah, I do know you've got a requests page! I'll go there next time.
ReplyDeleteMace, while I think quite highly of "Love," truth be told, "Dreamtime" is likely their most distinctive and uncompromising album. Where I think The Cult took a creative back step is "Electric." If only they hadn't bumped into Rick Rubin. Embarrassingly, I haven't heard the bands you mentioned but will attempt to seek them out. By the way, your "Dragon's cave of unjealously guarded gems" may become the blog's description (with your permission of course) at some point when I tire of the L. Cohen line. Great comment, thanks!
ReplyDelete