Ceremony

Ceremony is the fifth album on which THE CULT, centered on Billy Duffy’s thick guitar and Ian Astbury’s deep voice, built a longer, more shadowed song world. Hard-rock drive remains, but the songs build tension not only through immediacy but through repeating riffs and wide space. After the previous album’s success, the band aimed for a deeper expression. Between the directness of “Wild Hearted Son” and the melancholy of “Heart of Soul,” the band’s different faces appear. Songs like “Ceremony,” “White” and “Sweet Salvation” breathe the band’s full playing too. Imagery reflecting a leaning toward Native American culture also appears strongly across the work. With grandeur and unease coexisting, it is a record emblematic of THE CULT in the early 1990s.