There is definitely a lot of pressure on Manhattan’s Cults right now. After their three-track debut EP went viral last year, the duo was overwhelmingly embraced by the blogosphere. “Go Outside” became a sensation, with the group’s blend of ‘60s pop merging with a manic energy that firmly belongs to the modern day. The clear downside to such a rapid rise in fame is the fear that a fully-fleshed-out album might not work in the same way a three-track collection could. Luckily, for Cults, they show an adept ability to vary their sound and songwriting capabilities.

Clearly not happy to just construct another chillwave album, Cults takes their new material into darker territories—after all, a group named “cults” that writes songs called “Abducted”, “Walk at Night”, and “Bad Things” shouldn’t be writing about sunny summer days. In fact, it seems fitting that a band choosing to cull musical staples from the ‘60s should also import some of the fear that the decade afforded people of the time. It wasn’t all Beach Boys and Gidget; there was the start of the Vietnam War, a presidential assassination, and a nuclear missile crisis. Therein lays the intrigue with the Cults: Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion mix their sunbeams with dark clouds.

Woven through the album are samples of speeches made by notorious cult leaders of the past, with many of the lyrical statements made by Follin unabashedly intersecting with these samples. Opening track, “Abducted”, would be a simple song about young love if it weren’t for the constant comparisons between falling in love and kidnapping. “Walk at Night” obsessively builds upon its simple melodic statement, with each iteration of the main phrase growing higher in register and volume, until guitar and drums explode in a miraculous fury. Cults is certainly not afraid to work within their darker material, which gives the scope of the entire album an incredibly mature feel. In fact, musically speaking, Follin and Oblivion take some major chances with their timing. Just when a track begins to lure you in with a rhythmic groove, as in “Abduction” or “Go Outside”, they alter the tempo and the clarity of the sound, essentially taking the wind out of their own sails. You’re left feeling like an ominous and nightmarish cloud just covered the blue sky you’ve been admiring; only to realize that the moment of fear is a fleeting one.

Cults ultimately reads as an interesting debut album, in that it shows the great potential for the young band—their next project could easily rest on these darker moments incorporated into their present material. No matter the future direction, there is enough variety present on the album, accompanied by a sense of unbridled confidence, to show that Cults could very well turn their moment of viral fame into something solid and durable.

Track List:
1. Abducted
2. Go Outside
3. You Know What I Mean
4. Most Wanted
5. Walk At Night
6. Never Heal Myself
7. Oh My God
8. Never Saw The Point
9. Bad Things
10. Bumper
11. Rave On