Since they first urged us to escape our indoor confines nearly 15 years ago, Cults will always be a summer band to us. Now the New York City alt-pop duo of multi-instrumentalists Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion are keeping true to the season, releasing new album To the Ghosts this Friday (July 26) via Imperial.
The closing track, a haunting and delicate number called “Hung The Moon,” hit the streams this month as a final cinematic appetizer to the record. And it looks ahead to the future through a Lynchian fever dream of retro-pop wistfullness, as Follin and her angelic voice offers up some lyrical optimism: “Let it saturate, a love in bloom / I know it’s you, you hung the moon.”
“It has a Twin Peaks, roadhouse vibe,” admits Oblivion. “It’s a sweet nursery rhyme set to an ominous tone. It goes back to the concept of growing up. Life doesn’t stop when you check all of the boxes; it gets crazier. There’s always possibility, adversity, and fun up ahead.”
Beyond the record drop, the “up ahead” for Cults includes a headlining tour in August that avoids New England entirely, but finds the duo swinging back our way through a support gig for Vampire Weekend at TD Garden on September 27 before heading off for more headlining gigs in Europe.
Hang the moon that hovers above with Cults below.