Text and Photos by Robert Hanna
Cult of Youth live at Highline Bar 1.22.2015
Touring in support of Final Days, their latest release on Sacred Bones Records, Brooklyn’s Cult of Youth emerged on stage through a mist of frankincense and enveloped in swirling visual projections by Seattle artist Kevin Blanquies. Cult of Youth’s new material is remarkably distinct from earlier offerings; the songs are more immediate and post-punk driven than their more typically morose neo-folk leanings. With the addition of cello to their mix, it’s apparent that this quintet might have found and locked in their signature mark to a genre that is at many times rehashed. While still maintaining a campfire-esque tribal rhythm, the combination of acoustic and electric guitar hooks even hinted to a New Model Army or Bauhaus influence.
Touring with Cult of Youth on the West Coast was LA-based solo industrial noisescapist Hive Mind, bringing a wall of swarming and seriously dejected sonic texture.
Seattle’s KA are a relatively new three-piece whose droney and often heavy post-punk influenced rhythms read like a psychedelic interpretation of later Cure material. Also opening the night was solo project Holographic Beast, a looped noise project drenched in reverb and static-laden samples.
CULT OF YOUTH
HIVE MIND
KA
