Cults – Static

Break ups are hard enough at the best of times. Add to that the lack of personal space a band offers and one would imagine there’s an extra dimension of hurt and emotional distress – just ask Fleetwood Mac. But at least for the Mac there were other people in the band to vent to. With Cults it’s just two of them.

Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin were a couple when the band began. ‘Static’, their second album, is a break up record. Which leads one to expect a bleak album of recriminations. The titles certainly hint at that: the glorious first single ‘I Can Hardly Make you Mine’ as well as ‘Were Before’ and ‘No Hope’. Yet despite the separation a spark still definitely remains (both of them said that the band was more important to them than their relationship).

Their eponymous debut album was an amalgamation of girl groups, 60s doo-wop, Phil Spector pop and bedroom indie ditties with lyrics about dreams of escaping. However, here, as Madeline explains, the message of the record is “to fight against the idea that your life could be better than it is right now. You should appreciate the things that are right in front of you”.

Sonically however, the same classic dreamy indie pop template remains. Being cruel, ‘Static’ could be dismissed because of a lack of change as it progresses. But that’s sort of missing the point. It’s the small details here that make the difference.

It’s denser and groovier for a start. ‘Static’ is the sound of a band realising who they are and there’s a glow and intelligence that run throughout the songs that lifts it way above the twee-pop description that’s been lumped with. In essence the album continues to showcase Cults’ mastery of classic songwriting and the groove-led swagger of the 1960s.

Lyrically, the subject of their relationship, or at least relationships, is writ large across many of the songs on the album. The massive chorus of ‘Keep Your Head Up’ almost sounds like a mantra for the band. Of course there are regrets: over the top of the relaxed groove of High Road, Madeline sings ‘I should have took the high road’ (pardon the grammar). On ‘Were Before’, meanwhile, they duet, sharing lines such as ‘I like it like the way we were before’ and ‘There’s no one else for me my love’ while on closer ‘No Hope’ it’s “Burn down the bridges… forget tomorrow”.

But for all that there’s a heady optimism and warm fuzz that burns through Static that makes it a life-affirming listen. It’s an album about what happens next rather than looking back. They might be a band in thrall to the 1960s but this is a record that tells us to live in the now.