Cults
Garage, London

NEW YORK’S Cults, in Europe touring on the back of the release of third album Offering, are the dream-pop duo.

Expanded to a five-piece when playing live, they turned up at the Garage somewhat lighter after getting robbed earlier in the day. But that doesn’t stop a striking 14-song set taking punters on whirlwind ride into their weird indie-pop world.

Centre of attention throughout is lead singer and lyricist Madeline Rollin, whose distinctive dancing — or rather, rocking — complements her breathless, beautiful and childlike delivery.

Behind Rollin is the duo’s other half Brian Oblivion, who tinkers away on keyboards as he backs the dreamy vocals with a mix of synth sounds augmented by the band playing in the shadows.

The music might be reminiscent of Glasgow’s Chvrches, with some Spacemen 3 and perhaps Canada’s Purity Ring thrown in, but there’s a marked 1960s feel running through the sound and the stand-out vocals are what make Cults very much their own creation. Rollin’s singing is unique and intriguing, especially when you pay close attention to the lyrics.

Dark and despondent, they touch on broken relationships, on letting go, but also redemption and ultimately finding hope in hopeless situations.

That’s not to say the room is mired in misery, quite the converse, especially with the occasional quip from Oblivion between songs — there are some very choice words for the aforementioned thieves. But it’s Rollin’s dreamlike vocals which infect the audience with a sense of better times ahead.

The songs fly by and before long the music fades. Returning for a two-number encore, Cults end with Go Outside, the debut single that sampled cult leader Jim Jones and the track that started it all. Familiar, but it still sounds fresh and slightly macabre.

There's a dichotomy in Cults between sweetness and light, darkness and despair, the elegiac and the rousing, but those oppositions open a gateway to the weird world that’s home to a band that should be bigger and more appreciated.

But, then again, a cult in its truest sense is only special to a select few that have seen the light.

And Cults are very special, let the light shine bright.