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The Cult Unveils First Album in Six Years, Under the Midnight Sun

Veteran U.K. group kicks off a summer tour tonight in St. Paul, Minn.
Photo: Juan Azulay

Veteran U.K. rock outfit The Cult will release its first album in six years, Under the Midnight Sun, on Oct. 7 through Black Hill Records. The project’s first single, “Give Me Mercy,” is out now.

 

Under the Midnight Sun was produced by Tom Dolgety, who was also behind the boards for the upcoming Pixies record, Doggerel. The title was inspired by an experience frontman Ian Astbury had at a music festival in Finland when the sun was still up in the middle of the night. “People are laying on the grass, making out, drinking, smoking,” he recalls. “There were rows of flowers at the front of the stage from the performances earlier that evening. It was an incredible moment. I was compelled by this vision, this anomaly, this memory, of being under the midnight sun. Tom helped us bring a new musical shape and frequency to our process.”

As for “Give Me Mercy,” Astbury says “it perfectly fit these thoughts I’d been having about our culture’s need to move past assumptions of duality. We need new language because words can’t express where we’re going.”

Under the Midnight Sun is the follow-up to the 2016 album Hidden City. The Cult returns to the road tomorrow (July 8) alongside Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Zola Jesus in St. Paul, Minn., and has dates on the books through July 30 in Orillia, Ontario.