The Cult -‘Hidden City.’ (Cooking Vinyl)

Hidden City is the Cult’s tenth studio album. It’s 32 years since their debut Dreamtime, and in that time Messrs Astbury and Duffy, with a long list of members (one-time drummer Matt Sorum reputedly joined Guns’n’Roses for a bit of peace) have by and large raised a hearty two fingers to the post-punk scene they emerged from, and shown that what they want to do is rock. That attitude may not have endeared them to sections of the British music press, but it’s won them a lot of fans, and certainly at times has seen them, ahem, straddling the camps of goth, metal and indie.

Having originally called time on the band in 1995, the band have now been reformed longer than they were split. This album is the final part of a trilogy that began with Born Into This and continued with Choice Of Weapon. For the most part, it’s a fairly solid Cult album. The three tracks that did the rounds before the release of the album ‘Hinterland,’ ‘Deeply Ordered Chaos’ and ‘Dark Energy’ are among the strongest tracks here. Indeed, ‘Dark Energy’ is a very strong start to the album, the problem is that it perhaps overshadows some of the rest of the album, meaning that some of the record pales a bit by comparison. It’s not an overlong record, although perhaps a couple of tracks left off the record would have made it a bit stronger overall.

Whilst it’s perhaps unlikely to win them lots of new fans, those who have loved The Cult for many years (including this scribe) will find much to enjoy here. And it’s clear that well over a quarter of a century that decades after their emergence, there are many who are still interested in what the band have to say.

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Hidden City is out now on Cooking Vinyl