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Album Review: The Cult - Hidden City

Matthew Tomich
StarStar

"The Cult haven't forgotten how to write a good song — they've just forgotten how to write 12 of them."

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The Cult's tenth album opens with a cut fit for Electric or Love. 

Dark Energy is a raucous, swinging number brimming with the vitality and vigour that typified the band's early career and solidified their place in the rock canon. But it's one of few highlights in an album teeming with middling rock fare. Third single Hinterland's retro-futuristic shower of dreamy guitars, nervous bass lines and a fiery solo provide welcome respite from Hidden City's tepid balladry, though it's not enough to justify the unremarkable 25 minutes that precede and follow it.

The Cult haven't forgotten how to write a good song — they've just forgotten how to write 12 of them.