| Sonic Temple | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | The Cult |
| Cover: | The Cult Sonic Temple.jpg |
| Released: | 10 April 1989[1] |
| Recorded: | September – November 1988 |
| Studio: | Little Mountain Sound Studios, Vancouver |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 52:23 |
| Producer: | Bob Rock[3] |
| Prev Title: | Electric |
| Prev Year: | 1987 |
| Next Title: | Ceremony |
| Next Year: | 1991 |
Sonic Temple is the fourth studio album by British rock band The Cult, released on 10 April 1989. The album features some of the band's most popular songs, including "Fire Woman" and "Edie (Ciao Baby)". Sonic Temple was the last album recorded with longtime bassist Jamie Stewart, who left in 1990, and the first to feature session drummer Mickey Curry.
During 1988, The Cult recorded the first (14 track) demo version of this album with Eric Singer (later of Kiss) on drums. Later on, they tracked a new demo version of the record (15 songs) with Chris Taylor (drummer for the Bob Rock band).Sonic Temple marked the first time the band worked with Bob Rock, who would later produce The Cult, Beyond Good and Evil, Choice of Weapon and Hidden City. The album reached the Cult's highest chart position in the US, peaking at #10 on the Billboard 200 charts, and was certified Platinum by the RIAA in 1990.
The album cover features guitarist Billy Duffy with his Gibson Les Paul, partially obscuring a picture of vocalist Ian Astbury. The back cover features bassist Jamie Stewart, and an additional illustration on the insert, from left to right, features Astbury, Duffy, and Stewart.
On 4 October 2019, Sonic Temple was re-released as a 5-CD box set and as a 2 LP/1 cassette box set, with a different cover, the original album digitally remastered, numerous rarities, a live album recorded at London Wembley Arena and a comprehensive booklet featuring rare photos and background info on the album and the band. The LP/cassette edition has a limited release of 3500 copies worldwide.[4]
The album received mixed reviews, with some interpreting the change in sound positively and some negatively. John Leland of The New York Times deemed Sonic Temple "both [the Cult's] most conventional album and its most convincing", continuing: "Using a few simple riffs and images, the Cult creates an entire environment, one more exciting and stimulating than our own. Bob Rock, the album's producer, washes blunt, powerful sound over the broadness of most of the band's strokes. Sonic Temple makes a virtue of its lack of subtlety."[5]
In a less enthusiastic review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote: "Having risen from cultdom as a joke metal band metal fans were too dumb to get, they transmute into a dumb metal band. Dumb was the easy part. Ha ha." Los Angeles Times critic Chris Willman lambasted the album as "stupid". In his book Perfect from Now On, writer John Sellers criticised the Cult for "emulating a hair-metal band" on Sonic Temple, commenting that "the Cult had moved from the hearts of alternative-music fans to the Walkmans of Warrant disciples—completely unacceptable."[6]
Karen Douthwaite of Hi-Fi News & Record Review noticed that the band "recycling the same riffs for the last few albums" and "guitar sound intensified and metallized to AC/DC proportions.".[7] Parke Puterbaugh of Stereo Review considered that the band "borrows its inspiration" from Led Zeppelin, Queen and other AOR heroes from the hard rock Seventies, but "there's something perversely addictive about this music, with its upfront aggression and its slow-motion orgasms of drums and guitars building to a raunchy climax."[8]
| Publication | Country | Accolade | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guitar World | US | Top 20 Hair Metal Albums of the Eighties[9] | 2015 |
| Ulltimate Classic Rock | US | Top 30 Glam Metal Albums[10] | 2021 |
All tracks written by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy.
There was a Saudi Arabian version released, with the track listing expanded (although "Soul Asylum" had been removed) and slightly rearranged:
| Chart (1989–1990) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Billboard 200[13] [14] | 10 | |
| Cash Box[15] | 4 | |
| UK Album Chart[16] | 3 |