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The Cult review – hard rock survivors blast through a beefy 40th birthday party
Displaying the lean mean belligerence of artists half their age the band bring a brutish level of distortion and energy to a tight 90 minute set of classics
Doing without the usual trappings of such a victory lap – there are no speeches, no video montages, not even a backdrop with their name on it – they rip through a set that suggests they’d prefer to be viewed not as old stagers but as a lean, mean rock band capable of mixing it with artists half their age. Photograph: John Wellings/The GuardianThey open with In the Clouds, a relative deep cut given a brutish update by guitarist Billy Duffy, who attacks its lead with a combination of precision and filthy, gut-level distortion. It’s an approach he favours all night, turning the mid-80s funk-flecked curio Resurrection Joe into a heaving mess of noise and Spiritwalker into a stalking, propulsive rocker, while giving Love Removal Machine’s Creedence Clearwater Revival worship a steroid shot.
Or read this on The Guardian
