Things should have been going swimmingly for The Cult. Their album Electric had succeeded in becoming the biker-rock record they hoped it would be – raw, straight-ahead and helmed by a fledgling production wunderkind named Rick Rubin. It gained some necessary traction in the sales and recognition departments as well, based in part on the single “Love Removal Machine.” By the time the band went on the road, however, the future for the Cult looked grim. By most accounts, the blame fell squarely on the shoulders of frontman Ian Astbury, his hedonism and earth-child eccentricities becoming far too difficult for the rest of the band to absorb. The Japanese leg of the tour was nixed as Astbury’s proclivity toward destroying the instruments every night was becoming too costly to continue.

That they returned in 1989 with the album Sonic Temple is, then, some sort of miracle. That they were able to wrest some noteworthy rock anthems from the process is even more remarkable. Longtime bassist Jamie Stewart recorded on the album, but quit the band not long after completion. Guitarist Billy Duffy, having been stripped of his guitar pedals and sonic tricks by Rick Rubin, was relieved not only to have Sonic Temple’s producer Bob Rock reinstate the pedals, but add string sections, walls of reverb and Iggy Pop, essentially undoing all the retrofitting Rubin placed on the band previously.

And Ian Astbury? Well, this is the man who would be Jim Morrison’s successor, so certain things remain consistent in his ouevre. The shamanistic posturing, the biker-bar swagger, his ability to pad a short and sweet lyric with nonsensical ad-libs and attaching a “baybeh” to almost any sentiment: they’re all on the album, but don’t knock it, because for the most part, it works. The reason it works is because when added to the hard-rock kick that most of the songs possess, the two halves become a whole that logic can’t divide. For instance, the big single of the album, “Fire Woman,” is not so far removed from AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Astbury doesn’t really need to go into deep, psychological detail about why his junk is on fire. It just is; she’s just turning him on, and that’s all there needs to be said. Does that diminish the song in any way? Not really because, after all, this is prime stripper-approved rock ‘n’ roll, itself only a euphemism for mattress endurance testing. (more…)