Without a heart to break
Without a risk to take
Without desire to fake…
It is a strange, piercing want; this apparition of a love that never rose to draw breath. One drifts through halls of memory where no doors swing wide, yet the faint echo of another step implies someone once kept pace. Desire builds like fog, shapeless yet insistent, and melts away with dawn. The world proceeds without pause, indifferent…while the heart stages dialogues never spoken, gestures never returned. Silence remains, and silence is harsher than grief, for grief at least declares what was.
From Boorloo/Perth, Australia, Life Cult steps forward with a dark vitality in their new single, Life Is Love. Since their 2021 debut, they have carved a place with a metallic, modern turn on the old rites of gothic music. They lean on drum machines that march with stern certainty, and basslines that cut deep and hard. Their songs speak of death and heartbreak, drinking from the same dark wells as The Sisters of Mercy, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Type O Negative, Jack Ladder, and Fields of the Nephilim. Out of these elements, they fashion songs that stagger with both sorrow and grandeur.
Life Cult here seems intent on something more patient, more resigned than before. Their latest work arrives as a hushed, slow hymn. Life Is Love glides on spacious air, guitars gentle, the rhythm unhurried. A ballad, tender and plaintive: the voice soars, bearing its weight of sadness with something like grace. The song is caught between sorrow and sweetness, its tones at once heavy and light, grounded yet rising. It breathes with the ache of memory and the chill of absence, yet offers a strange comfort: in the mingling of weight and air, of sorrow and sweetness, the listener hears not grief alone but the sound of life still moving. The absence is endless, yes, but in the music, it is given shape enough to hold.
As the band explains, “We wanted to craft something that was a bit more lyrically tender and introspective, and musically could provide some breathing room in our live shows. It’s become a staple of our live sets and a fan favourite, so we’re really excited to share it with the world.”
Here Life Cult’s fire is quiet, but it burns no less brightly. In turning toward tenderness, they prove absence itself can resound like a hymn.
The 7″ will be released on 200 copies on black 150gr vinyl housed in a 300gsm folded sleeve; the band are also re-releasing their first EP on cassette (limited to 200). Listen below, and Pre-order here.
Life Cult is set to embark on an Australian tour in October, playing some TBA dates in Melbourne, and Essence Fest in Canberra on Saturday October 4th. “We’re calling out all bats to attend,” they quip.
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