It was the eighties, I was a youth and I was often in the company of goths. Evenings around friends’ houses were often suffused with the smell of cheap hairspray and hot crimping irons. ‘Cider and Black’ was the drink of choice at our underground haunts.
It must have been a comforting subculture to join; to feel misunderstood by the world, retreat behind a black fringe and nurture your alienation, studying your toes as you walked back and forth on the dancefloor.
But goth was something I could never identify with. I had never been into the occult, I didn’t enjoy being miserable. I liked passion and honesty. I wanted to look the world in the eye and tell it where to go.
Goth was a movement but not a musical style as such, but the bands associated with it all tended to sing in deep, moody voices and avoid conventional tropes of popular music like y’know…melody and dynamics.
There was one band, though, that were worth my attention. The Cult had started out as Southern Death Cult, which was shortened to Death Cult and finally, The Cult. Their early highlights included the Killing Joke-ish single ‘Ressurection Joe’. But they really broke through with their 1985 album Love and the big hit ‘She Sells Sanctuary’.
This single, with it’s high-energy beat and switchback riff, was a surefire floor filler at any indie, goth or rock disco. Ian Astbury’s voice was powerful and faintly androgynous, similar to Pete Burns of Dead or Alive. During the ‘Love’ era, The Cult had a great look, with Astbury rocking a gothic Haight-Ashbury vibe. And with Duffy playing a beautiful Gretsch White Falcon as his onstage sparring partner, it was a perfect package.
It didn’t last. For the band’s next album Electric, produced by Rick Rubin, they decided to reinvent themselves as a heavy rock band. Perhaps this was an attempt to firmly distance themselves from the goth tag they’d got sick of, but it was all a bit hard to believe.
I welcomed it at the time, and in retrospect the single ‘Love Removal Machine’ has an enjoyable, punchy swagger. But the musicians, particulary Duffy, lacked the skills to really pull it off. Duffy had been a creator of classic alternative rock riffs, now he just sounded like a piss-poor Angus Young imitator.
The subsequent album Sonic Temple had it’s moments but they no longer had any relevance. The Cult were an inherently limited band but they still had something. And for a brief moment they managed to distill it into magic.
Footnote:
The Cult have continued to release albums for a hardcore of devoted fans including the most recent, Choice of Weapon in 2012.
Astbury went on to tour with the remaining members of The Doors, impersonating his hero, Jim Morrison.
Tom George 
Liked the ref to_Killing Joke, among other things.
I went to see them last year, writing about it was one of my first ever posts on my blog;
It was a really good night out.