Live Review

Cults – The Lexington, London

• 21st Mar 2011

It’s Friday night and a gig at the Lexington fast approaches. What you need to do before it is to go to a chippy about 10mins walk away in between Kings Cross and Russell Square. It offers biblical portions of chips and you can potter towards the gig in style with a slightly salty-vinegary taint lingering with you all night. Once in there are, as always, the sort of staggered queues that remain semi-civilised meandering around the downstairs pub, and the usual vast array of very nice American beers that are really good, but do tend to limit your purchases quite considerably.

Two Wounded Birds were supporting, with a front man who was pretty good with the guitar, ample amounts of wawa, who maintained that distance where you are never too sure if he is likeable or smug (using the guitar as a fake gun can be seen either way – the beauty of interpretation – (I know saying the ‘beauty of interpretation’ is definitely smug though))

There songs didn’t really have a central core to them. Reviewing gigs, you are meant to try and give a general impression of a band, but it felt difficult to really say what. A scuzzy sound on a few of their songs that sounded like monotone punk, then a sort of Japan-David Sylvain meets Morrissey post punk, and then a bit of a Vampire Weekend/Born Ruffians-like ‘uh-oh-oh’ singy-songy chorus. The changing, metamorphosing faces of the band were not convincing in any of their guises. A soulful number that could have been ‘Feeling Good’- Muse-attempt was ok, but lacked something still. The four piece did ok, but you could see their musical influences on their sleeve, which left you with nothing else but to see them as a poor imitation of lots of bands you’ve seen already.

Cults are quite a new band, with only a few songs scattered around the internet, so it is quite difficult to really guess what they are going to be like, which is always fun in a way – my incessant desire to find out the back-story of a band and what their nan’s had for breakfast from 1954 to 1958 didn’t flesh out wish results, so they held a mystery that isn’t usual for headline acts. The floppy haired assembly finally got on stage after a lot of dilly-dallying with five hippy-type blokes crowding the stage with a singer who tried to go for the cute-indie pop look. With such a rabble on stage you did expect quite a full sound, but for all of that it seemed quite hollow as it kicked in. It had the makings of a nice, gentle indie pop band. A xylophone, tick, a Adam Green-like supporting singer, tick, keyboards, tick, but it never quite began or flowed, and was over as soon as it begun. With only 7 or 8 songs it didn’t really feel like a headline set, but they were not really a headline act.

Their single ‘Go Outside’ was the song that did feel memorable, but either because of poor sound levelling, or just a messy-timing, they didn’t really work. It had a skipping in the park like beat and sound, but the singer was never holding the crowd. It definitely wasn’t Belle and Sebastian, nor was it pop, but a weird hybrid of a sort of funk session singer mixed with an indie group. Their songs were not pronounced and felt tiring. I wouldn’t recommend them really, but the xylophones on the single are nice. Their singles in the studio might be ok, but on stage they are messy and disorganised.