Having been showered unanimously with love and praise by every music blog/site/magazine on the web – all of whom based their affections on the basis of the band’s one and only single (until the recent run of new tracks) – Cults debut is what you might call much anticipated. Yet the pressure has seemingly worked wonders, creating here, a set of joyously heartbroken, soulful pop.

Bowlegs has heard the single ‘Go Outside’ intermittently for the last 18 months, yet it still feels, as does most of the record, like a ray of brightly coloured melody. Sure some tracks here sound similar to one another, but it doesn’t detract from the album’s strength – which is a confident free-fall into romance, heartache and timeless melody.

The heart of the band is New York duo Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion, surrounded by a few fellow New Yorkers who fill the sound with an infectious live energy. ‘Bumper’ is as catchy as it is foot-tapping, Follin and Oblivion sharing out the lines. ‘Abducted’ cracks the percussion relentlessly, the synths overflow and the guitars roll – atop it all Madeline delivers an emotionally charged performance (Brian taking the vocal breakdown).

‘You Know What I Mean’ lets the band’s love for 60s soul (Motown style) take full control – swinging, lilting and finger-clicking through the verses, crashing into a guitar-banging chorus. Again Madeline rips it up, squeezing every bit of emotion into her vocal tones. ‘Bad Things’, meanwhile, takes a less-travelled road: echoed sounds, samples and razor guitars skip, trip and wail.

As a whole the record is brimming with a generous mass of keys and synths, guitars that strum, rounded bass-lines and over-sized beats, all of which fill the atmosphere with enthusiasm, while Madeline’s passion and spirit giving it a retro, sweet-sounding vibe. It looks like we were all right on this one: Cults are worthy reciprocators of our love.

-Jon Harper-