Is there anything less esthetically pleasing than the long greasy haired hipster wearing a guitar while playing the keyboards? I don't know who thought this would be a good idea, but I think the bastard should be put to death.
That would be Brian Oblivion, incidentally. Half of Cults, a sorta electronics plus 50s pop amalgam. And the other half on stage at Randall's Island is lead singer who saves the ethically challenged by swinging her hips and pulling her short skirt up past her thigh. Now that is fun to watch for half an hour.
And the band are a cool way to kill some time: they have a firm grasp on melody and on the set highlight "You Know What I Mean", a pop ballad replete with snaps claps, and double tracking, they find a place in the sun where the audience can respond well. A girl besides me whisper to me, "Do you like this one? It was the song that first turned me on to them",.
Equally excellent is set closer "Go Home" -featuring an entirely incongruous Jim Jones (yeah, the original Kool AId drinker) sample on the sweet sounding pop song. Both of these songs end in the by the numbers we have come to expect from rock bands. It is like everybody is adhering to the jam today premise of rock shows: find a groove and keep to it. With two musicians augmenting the band, Cults do this all afternoon long.
Melanie has a highly melodic voice and the songs are so sweet that it could be either coy or maybe just bland, it isn't either but it isn't quite good enough either and despite the acolytes the band has received, from writers here among many others, I wasn't crazy about the album and I'm not crazy about the overall mood. Imagine the Vivian Girls and the Best Coast mushed up together and you will get the idea. Now, I was never that crazy about either band (BC grew on me, VG never did) and I am not sincerely swept off by Cults, though naming and sampling the same thing on your first song is awful cute, awful awful cute.
And it isn't bad: jamming on melody is always more fun than jamming on straight up riffs, and if the rhythms are off-kilter for pop they are off kilter in a MIA way. . But jamming is also a way of killing time. And so is this.
Grade: B