The Top 20 Albums of 2011 - #20 - Cults: Cults

The Top 20 Albums of 2011

#20 Cults: Cults

Words by Dirk Calloway

Preface: You're reading the first entry in a daily series. Each day, I will review one of 2011's best albums. I listened to over 100 records from that year, so I reckon I'm entitled to an opinion on the matter. Over the next 3 weeks, we'll work our way up to the 'Best Album of 2011'. You can catch up on missed entries by clicking this link here.

You've got to be really sure of your 'sound' if you self-title your first album. Cults' Cults (mind the lack of 'The') is self-assured as fuck, self-titled, and self-aware. It's reactive and meta, but also proactive in the way it seizes an idea and runs with it from start to finish. So... what the hell is it? Well, it's a buzz-pop / noise-pop record that's largely indebted to the work of Motown-era girl groups. It's the vibe of Sleigh Bells' Rill Rill, but stretched out over the course of an entire album. It's the reverb-drenched indie pop album of the summer that you can play to your mother:

The above video wasn't created by the band. Instead, it was created by a faithful fan who apparently whipped it together in a few hours. It perfectly marries their sound with the visuals of an unsettled suburbia, one that's drenched in radioactive sepia-tones. For those familiar with the New Zealand band The Brunettes, this is what they would sound like if they'd lased their lollipops with LSD. It's interesting to see the same song interpreted officially, in their actual music video below. It feels 'slicker' and that's why I don't like it as much, but at least it addresses the band's name, and goes some way to visually justifying the massive echo on the vocals:

So, what makes this record a great one? If you'd listened to 100+ albums this year, what would make it stand out from the crowd? For me, its songs are so laden with catchy hooks, melodies and beats that I find it hard to stay away. I'm not wild about its production, perhaps because it only sounds really good on my Sennheiser headphones (don't even bother playing it through your laptop speakers, or in your iPhone earbuds), but the songs themselves are so catchy that I can't resist playing them anyway. To Cults' credit, they are hiding rock-solid, well-crafted songs behind a layer of produced distortion: 

Compare the usage of that 'sound' to 99.9% of the other 'noise-pop' or 'buzz-pop' or 'whatever-you-call-it-pop' groups out there. Many bands in the genre are very busy hiding awful songs behind a forced production technique. Not Cults. In the words of Rolling Stone's Judy Rosen: "Cults are excellent songcrafters, expert at boosting drama with dynamics and unexpected sounds. But what sets their music apart is feeling: the mood of wistful romance that hovers over the songs, the idea that love is an insoluble mystery."

Tune in tomorrow to find out who made the 19th best album of 2011! They're a New Zealander. And if you want to see other posts in this series, click here.