Occasional Albums Thing 026 - The Cult “Electric”

Talking of Heavy Metal (see Pearl Jam 3 weeks ago https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/wrrb/cmon-guys-its-heavy-metal)…

I will hold up my hands and confess to not being the world’s biggest fan of The Cult. Anything prior to them dropping the Southern and Death bits of their name are a desert to me and almost everything post 1990 is of little interest or unknown to me…BUT (and it’s a big stop and hold your horses BUT)…”She Sells Sanctuary” is just about one of the greatest and most exciting records it’s ever been my pleasure to hear/play/dance to and just for a couple of albums there at the back end of the 80’s they almost (only almost) convinced me to take heavy rock seriously.

“Electric” (as many of you will no doubt be aware) was the follow up to 1985’s “Love”, an album full of moody “…Sanctuary” like gothy-groover’s such as “Rain” and “Hollow Man”. The signs were there though. The title track hints at what might be to come, “Revolution” was a proper power-rock ballad, Billy Duffy ain’t afraid to rip out a rockin’ solo like he does in under a minute on “Phoenix”. The Cult were headin’ someplace else.

By the time the band are all in on track 1 side 1, “Wild Flower” there is absolutely no doubt that this is a Hard Rock record. A crunching guitar riff, pounding drums and the bass guitar merely filling out the bottom end are topped off with Astbury’s vaguely lascivious lyrics about his “wild honey child” and he being out of control whenever she’s near at hand giving it the requisite perceived machismo of the Hard Rockin’ genre. “Peace Dog” continues in much the same vein and that is followed by the hip-shaking “Lil’ Devil”, led in with Astbury’s ridiculous yet fabulous “Yay-ahh”, who comes on with “an alligator smile, Dynamite lover, scorpion child” so the subject matter ain’t moving on much. “Aphrodisiac Jacket” hangs off a vaguely Beatle-esque psychy riff…and on it rocks.

Side 2’s highlight is undoubtedly the single “Love Removal Machine”, you can tell from the title the subject matter is firmly where it was (including the incredible “Baby, baby, baby, baby, I fell from the sky, Yesterday, you blew my mind, oh yeah”). It reaches it’s nadir however with an excrutiating stab at Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”, much covered over the years and without question covered much better over those years (Slade’s go at it on “Slade Alive!” likely being my favourite).

“Electric” was produced by Rick Rubin who you may be aware has quite the reputation in Metal circles (Slayer, Danzig and others…although Wolfsbane who I worked with had less than complimentary things to say about the job he did for them) and although I’m a fan of this record it is a little underwhelming sonically, follow up album “Sonic Temple” (produced by the aptly named Bob Rock) was much more like it.

Referring back to the beginning and “Wild Flower”, it takes Ian Astbury just a shade over 30 seconds before he sings the word “baby” for the first time on this album, he goes absolutely nuts with the “baby”s toward the end of second track “Peace Dog”. The word “baby” is sung quite a lot on “Electric”. This became something of a running joke between myself and fellow former Wonder Stuff crew member Mr. Smith and, likely while drunk, we once decided, in the back lounge of an American tour bus, to play this album and count the number of times Ian Astbury sang the word “baby”. We gave up before the end of side 1.

In later years I got to work with Billy Duffy and he was every bit the guitar slinging Rock God this record suggests he’s always wanted to be. “Electric” ain’t ever winning any awards for breaking new musical barriers, it’s an unashamed hard rock album, but if what you want is groin thrusting guitars spraying monumental riffs hither and thither, thundering drums and a chest beating singer so full of the confidence imbued by the band behind him then it might just be the best example of such a thing I’ve ever heard. I bloody love it.

Wild Flower - https://youtu.be/_NxrphVL7bQ?si=LLI94rsZ4s9jftoB