Review & Video Premiere: Drug Cult, Drug Cult
[Click play above to see the premiere of Drug Cult’s video for ‘Reptile Hypnosis.’ Their self-titled debut is out June 21 on Ritual Productions.]
Maybe this is pointing out the obvious on some levels, but with Drug Cult, the idea is consumption. Yes, theirs, of narcotics, but also theirs of their audience. The Australian four-piece make their self-titled debut through Ritual Productions with nine tracks and 42 minutes of haze doom given its cultish presence by vocalist Aasha Tozer, who on a song like the post-Electric Wizard swinging “Release” comes across like an echo-laden bad trip version of Grace Slick atop the riffing of Vin Steele (ex-Wolfmother, Megaritual, Sun of Man), the snare march from Dale Walker (also Megaritual, Sun of Man) and air-pushing, hope-you-invested-in-replacement-tubes low end of bassist Maggie Schreiber. As a unit their sound is consistent but not unipolar across their debut, but again, they’re looking to swallow the listener entirely.
There are elements drawn from doom — plenty of them, actually — and shades throughout of modern cult rock, but Drug Cult seem less interested in convincing their audience they worship evil spirits than in creating a downer-lumbering atmosphere in which some ritual might take place. Even “Bloodstone,” on which Tozer intones, “I want more/Your blood is the drug I’ve been searching for,” seems more about the hypnotic repetitions of its lines than about the words themselves. With the significant aural murk the band creates there and throughout the rest of the tracks, their sound basks in a dark-toned revelry, and whether a given song is fast or slow, structured or open, it’s the ambience that ties it all together.
The rest of the tracks hover somewhere between three and five minutes, but Drug Cult earn immediate points by opening Drug Cult with the 8:51 “Serpent Therapy,” providing quick immersion into the swamp their tones have created. Walker earns specific mention for his drums keeping these songs from flying apart entirely, and as “Serpent Therapy” rolls out its insistent rif moving toward the halfway mark, it’s the drums that allow the listener to hold onto their consciousness to the extent they can. From there unfold a series of what the band would probably call ‘rites.’ “Release” builds forward momentum rolling into the lurching open of “Reptile Hypnosis,” the stomp of which stands among the record’s most satisfying and the hook of which also provides a highlight moment, let alone the searing guitar lead that comes after it. Throughout, front-to-back, Drug Cult sound positively filthy.
Like the kind of band who show up to play the gig, open their van door and from it wafts a smell that’s as much body odor as it is reefer, the latter both being actively smoked at that moment and seeping through the pores of the band itself. Such is the Drug Cult vibe, and even on faster, more swinging garage-doom-style pieces like “The Wall” or “Slaylude,” the depth of tone remains the same and the spaciousness provided both by the guitar and bass together and by Tozer‘s echo-soaked vocals help craft the band’s dark and obscure plane. Whether it’s the howling lurch of centerpiece “Mind Crypt” or the deceptive shuffle of closer “Spell,” which seems less like the moment Drug Cult are trying to payoff the album as a whole than the moment they’re trying to tear it apart — though perhaps that is the payoff — Drug Cult hold firm to a willful sense of aesthetic and atmosphere, and that they refuse to veer from it makes their debut all the more consuming.
That’s not necessarily to imply that the self-titled is completely unipolar. As noted, they toy with a variety of structures and tempos that keep a steady flow from “Serpent Therapy” onward, and the effect that extended opener has of thrusting the audience into Drug Cult‘s scope isn’t to be understated. Where the rest of the album succeeds behind it is in Drug Cult setting up a fluidity between tracks that carries the listener through a trip that’s both nuanced and familiar somehow, without losing hold of their intention. Taking into account this is Drug Cult‘s debut, the full-album level of consideration the band brings to their work is doubly impressive, though it’s also worth pointing out that individual tracks like “Reptile Hypnosis,” “The Wall,” “Bloodstone,” “Spell,” etc., hardly fail at leaving their own mark. It’s the manner in which these songs feed into the whole experience of the record that give it such a sense of accomplishment on an stylistic level.
In the end, I don’t know if Drug Cult is someone’s distant cousin or something like that — let’s assume not — but they make an excellent fit for Ritual Productions, which has worked to put out offerings from Ramesses, 11Paranoias, Bong, and so on. Perhaps somewhat less extreme in their presentation, they’re no less considerate of ambience than their compatriots, and if this is Drug Cult‘s starting point, it will be fascinating to hear what their sound morphs into over subsequent releases.
Ritual Productions on Bandcamp
Ritual Productions on Thee Facebooks
Tags: Australia, Drug Cult, Drug Cult Self-titled, Mullumbimby, Ritual Productions, self-titled
