“I wish it were different
It all ends the same
Your savage heart
Has stolen my name”
The Cult have released the video for their lead single “Give Me Mercy” from the upcoming album Under The Midnight Sun, via Black Hill Records.
“Give Me Mercy” is a crooning lament that shows The Cult returning to the same mystical cistern that inspired the music found on their 1985 album Love.
This song and the others found on Under the Midnight Sun were inspired by The Finnish festival Provinssirock is a multi-day event where in the summer, the sun literally refuses to set. This sets the stage for a bizarre mindset culled from the memories of The Cult’s time there on tour in 1986, a vision that inspired frontman Ian Astbury to pen eight tracks of brand new music while waxing nostalgic during the pandemic.
“Give Me Mercy” has all the hallmarks of classic Cult, according to guitarist Billy Duffy, calling it “fresh yet familiar.”
“When the world stopped, I had this moment to write in real time, to calculate,” says Ian Astbury. “I was compelled by this vision, this anomaly, this memory, of being under the midnight sun…it’s three in the morning, the sun’s up, and there’s all these beautiful people in this halçyon moment. People are laying on the grass, making out, drinking, smoking. There were rows of flowers at the front of the stage from the performances earlier that evening. It was an incredible moment.”
Watch the mysterious, esoteric video directed by Juan Azulay below:
The Cult released their last album, Hidden City, six years ago. Astbury and Duffy still work magic together after all these years. “I was absolutely enamoured with this piece of music Billy had written, and it perfectly fit these thoughts I’d been having about our culture’s need to move past assumptions of duality,” says Astbury. “We need new language because words can’t express where we’re going.”
The Cult are currently on tour in the US, with a few dates in Canada and Mexico. More information is on their official site.
Pre-order Under The Midnight Sun here.
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