(Credit: Eric Chakeen)
Cults are a New York-via-San-Diego duo, made up of off-record couple Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin. In the last few months they've gone from messing around, recording songs on the side while they both study film, to becoming one of the indie-rock blog mafia's most coveted and buzzed-about acts.
While Madeline was once in a kid-punk band called Youth Gone Mad, both artists are relative newcomers to the writing and recording thing, but you wouldn't know it by listening to their, albeit limited, output.
Thus far they've released only three songs, and other than a few interviews here and there, they've kept up a refreshing sense of mystery about the band -- an increasingly difficult task in this day and age.
Musically, Cults make a kind of sedated, '60s-style pop, influenced obviously by the likes of Phil Spector and the classic songwriting of the Brill Building. The music is given a sort of chilling feel due to Follin's childlike vocals. On songs like "Go Outside" you feel something haunting underneath the superficial innocence of the track (the sample of cult leader Jim Jones speaking in the beginning of the song doesn't make things any less creepy).
Cults are currently wrapping up their full-length album, but you can hear three songs, including the beautiful "Go Outside" here.