Dreamtime (40th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue)

The Cult

Dreamtime (40th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue)

Beggars Banquet

Mar 27, 2024 Web Exclusive By Frank Valish

Pivoting from its goth roots as Southern Death Cult, first dropping the Southern and the later the Death, The Cult emerged in the early 1980s as a formidable rock and roll force.

Reissued on vinyl for the band’s 40th anniversary, The Cult’s 1984 debut, Dreamtime, finds the band hitting the ground running, while also poised for greater heights. The album’s first single, “Spiritwalker,” hit #1 on the U.K.‘s independent chart, but the rest of the album largely only hints at where The Cult would go.

There’s the windy guitar and hypnotic feel of “Gimmick,” deep bass of “Go West,” the torturous textures of “Butterflies,” the slow burn of album closer “Bad Medicine Waltz.” All the pieces of the band’s mid- to late-‘80s explosion of 1985’s Love, 1987’s Electric, and 1989’s Sonic Temple are present, even if they don’t always cohere in quite the manner of that remarkable trio of albums that follow.

Dreamtime is where the cult of The Cult began. (www.archive.beggars.com)

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