The Cult - Choice of Weapon

I love The Cult! They’re a real rock band, that embodies, the meaning of that word. They have always quite daringly shifted through music styles, not much concerned about what’s hip and what’s not, sometimes, by chance, managing to become hip. But trendy hipsters they were, never.

 

Their 80s body of work and influence, is well established and known, even if they often choose to dismiss it. But beginning with the 90s - the bands output became more and more unpredictable, in terms of both style and release timeframes. With downtime between albums being on average more than 5 years, during which the band toured and involved themselves in various side projects, one would say that the band just kicked any chance at a commercial resurgence straight in the head. And while “Beyond Good and Evil” (their first album in the 00s) should have been huge - Atlantic did a very lackluster job and the album, sunk, without leaving much of a mark. Similarly, the patchier “Born into This” released on Roadrunner, who expected, The Cult, to lay down a “golden egg”, didn’t receive any promotion, so that also, had little impact. Fast Forward to 2012, and Cooking Vinyl, an even smaller label, compared to the aforementioned ones and “Choice of Weapon”! Actually, may I say Halle-funking-lujah!

 

The Cult, have managed to produce, the album that was eluding, them, or that they didn’t want to do. An amalgam of all of the previous efforts, with careful and economical recycling of their heyday style and a few newer influences, perfectly accumulated and imbued into the final result. A little, “Love”, a pinch “Electric”, more “Ceremony” than “Sonic Temple” and a pinch of their 90s and 00s 3 efforts, must have been the blueprint for “Choice”. The mystical lyrics are back, the post wave/goth mannerisms too, the pure rock guitar tone as well!

 

“Honey From a Knife” opens with a signature riff and a tambourine. Ha, ha, so typical of vintage The Cult! But at the same time, so good and so convincing! The Cult are back in all their glory, hungry like a wolf! Dangerous! Unconventional, Unbound! Letting it all out! Passionate! Rejuvenated! And it’s at the very least bizarre, how a reference to drugs, fits, such a song in the way it does!

 

“Elemental Light” drops, the beat, and allows Astbury, to shine with a very sensational performance, against a very Spartan, musical canvas, that keeps only what’s necessary and rarely, comes to the fore (ie during the chorus and solo). The song is very ominous sounding, overall, with some really disturbing lyrics, like “every one of us, feels alone inside and every one of us has forgotten, our name”, but then the chorus comes as soothing as anything and manages to snatch us away from the jaws of depression! A song about finding beauty in our own personal darkness! Beautiful, just beautiful!

 

I dig “The Wolf” which half steals, the “She Sells Sanctuary” riff, for its intro, but then, gets much dirtier and heavier, with some off, strings and shit. The “Sanctuary” riff, returns during, the chorus, which works wonders, as the antithesis between the darker and lighter parts, creates great dynamics that carry the song along, effortlessly!

 

“Life>Death” is an interesting ballad, almost the spiritual offspring of “Sacred Life” from the S/T album, back in the mid-90s. Similar style, only a bit more dynamic and Astbury is absolutely perfect on this one as he truly sounds distraught and helpless and vulnerable and hurt, while singing the verses... his voice, maybe a little huskier than before, but his ability to channel emotion, untethered, as ever!

 

“For the Animals”, the album’s “single”? If such a thing still exists, these days... is a very interesting song. It resurrects the style and tone of the very first “The Cult album”, but amplified and embellished with some nice honky tonk and a big ass bass line, while Astbury spits out, both a hopeless mystical eulogy, a message of love, in an almost messianic way and a vicious denial, of the above, by proclaiming that “it’s not for you”!

 

Duffy, comes up with a twister of a solo, right there in the middle, that might be short, but it’s effective like hell, as well!

 

“Amnesia” almost segues in as it’s riff ain't too dissimilar, but it’s meaner and “dryer” not as funky, as “the animals” as it deals with the loss of identity... and being mis/"judged".

 

“Wilderness Now” is very “red”, with chopped up lyrics, almost inciting revolution, which contrasts, it’s rather mellow music. The chorus, is positively soul wrenching, with a line going “Death Walks Right Beside Me, the Light Shines Bright Behind Me” being a very poetic way to look at life and another going, “Kali, Kali, Kali, Money, Money, Money” being both a very spirited attack on the monetization of religion, but also a possible stepping stone, for a religious group to sue the band, ala “The Ceremony”... (oh boys... however tempted you might have been...)

 

“Lucifer” another song that has been dubbed a “single” and possibly released online as one, is an interesting, nightmarish, mid-tempo, that sounds like a “demonized” Sonic Temple, gospely out-take. Positively and diabolically catchy, it’s good, but not, exactly great, although, it's slowly creeping up on me and enhancing its grip on me. Oh, Devil!

 

“A Pale Horse” however is freakin’ memorable as hell! Astbury, proclaims, “Behold a Grey Horse”, acapella, assuming, the role, of the “Grim Reaper” as a single simple but effective riff, backs him up, before the song breaks into classical “The Cult” territory, complete with hi-hat/tambourine etc. The start/stop dynamics and the contrast between the evil deadly proclamations, about darkness wanting to take you and love, waiting in the shadows for you... work great and are oh, so insanely poetic that it blows my mind.

 

“This Night in the City Forever” which closes the album, is much bleaker, very dark and ominous, with disparaging yet hopeful lyrics, that mystically evoke a ceremonial atmosphere full of a muted excitement, love, fear, uncertainty but also bravery and hope, that one can persevere and pull through! What a way to conclude the album!

 

The Limited “Definitive Edition” of the album also contains the songs from the 2 Cult “capsules” sans their visuals. Thank god for that!

 

The “Capsules” were a complete an utter failed idea. 2 dual disks (a failed format – that’s not quite compatible with neither all CD’s or DVDs, as them dual disks - are thicker, that were only available in the US initially, for wait $25 + $25 shipping, each and that ultimately, were NOT SHIPPED!

 

(I know - I ordered one and got BALLS! Thank you - whatever the name of those American rip-offsets were!) Oh and the vinyl, produced in super miniscule, quantities, ended up selling for 400 $ upwards too!  Same goes for the USB flash drives too! $25 each - for 2 songs? Boo-hiss!

 

The songs themselves, are not bad, but are a little shoddier and not as polished. “Every Man and Woman” could have easily been on the S/T album, and is quite uplifting. 

 

“Embers” is quite desperate and down-trodden and only finds elation, when it takes flight towards the end.

 

“Until the Light Takes Us” is as dark as it sounds, and is mostly carried, by its nice riff and chorus and some rather interesting guitar noodling’s in the background, rather than it’s rather abstract structure.

 

“Siberia” is possibly the song that had the most effort put in it - a lyric quoting “Honey From a Knife” appears here, so one might easily come to the conclusion that this might have been intended, for the “album”, but was left out, intentionally. The vocals here are stronger, and the production somewhat, better than on the previous “capsule” songs, while the guitar plays a very nice, theme, here and there! The song itself, is also kinda cold and desperate, like its subject theme, but hey it kinda works, so I don’t care!

 

“Choice of Weapon” with or without the “capsules” bonus, is an album that may not be what the entire world had been waiting for, but it’s surely something that longtime “The Cult” fans (and they are quite a few, quite a tribe, of Lovers, Rocker and Rave(r/n)s) will appreciate and Love. Whether it will put the band back on the map in terms of commercial acclaim is irrelevant, as the whole “biz” is going down the drain, probably, alongside with the rest of the world, surrendered to the ways of “today’s society”. But this “Weapon” is THE MIND! Music, Arts, Poetry and Philosophy, have long armed humankind, against oppression, tyranny and other plagues that have befallen it. Pick it up and something deep inside my pounding “Indian Heart”, is telling me that we’re gonna make it!