Customer Reviews

Cult of Ray

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mixing bizzare sc-fi oriented lyrics with a post-punk\prog rock style, Black creates this album, which, by some dumb reason, is often regected by critics. Don't listen to those critics. This is a very good, highly-creative album. Shades of paranoia, goofism, space obsession, and Ray Bradbury tributes run amok on "Cult Of Ray", resulting in something that is loud and raw. Frank invents a new genre-Science Fiction Rock. An awesome piece of art. Frank is the true enigma from a parallel dimension. ("The Marsist" is about the famous face on Mars and scientist Richard C. Hoagland, a.k.a. The Marsist. Listen to the album to contemplate the rest.)

Too many people hold that Cult of Ray is a disappointment. Granted, Teenager of the Year is a very tough act to follow, but I think of CoR as somewhat of a Trompe Le Monde after Doolittle. While Teenager is definitely his masterpiece, CoR is one of the most unique moments in his discography. Remaining an amazingly melodic songwriter, he continues to stretch his experimentations in structure in beautiful, inspired rockers like "Cult of Ray" and "Men in Black", while "The Marsist" reaches a textural and rhythmic weirdness that should intrigue and excite any intelligent listener. His lyrics are also as clever as always, and yet the two instrumentals, tracks 7 and 10 are very rewarding to repeated listening. Perhaps the darker, more metallic sound of this album is what bothers some, but to me it is one of its highlights. I would definitely pick this over Black's next three Catholics efforts.

It took me a little while to get into this album coming from "Teenager of the year". There are no bad songs but on average they are a little inferior to what I was used to hear coming from Frank Black.
Some tracks I enjoyed:
"Men in Black"
"You Ain't me"
"Mosh, Don't pass the Guy"
"Dance War"

I don't understand why people insist on comparing this album to TOTY or any other Frank Black album. The songs are well-written and don't even approach triteness.

Overall it's a bit more conventional than Teenager of the Year, but so is every album in the FB catalogue when it comes to Teenager of the Year. I don't blame FB for not wanting to make another TOTY. What's the point of repeating yourself?

"Men in Black" is a great rocker; "I Don't Want to Hurt You (Every Single Time)" is an unusual but effective ballad; and "Dance War" is one of the fastest, most aggressive songs he ever wrote. Throw in the unusual arrangement of the title track and you've got all the things Frank is known and revered for. There's even a couple of instrumentals. If you like any of his other records, buy this album. You won't be disappointed.

Yes, I'll agree that this is not as good as FB's first 2 solo CDs, but it's still great music, and with those first two albums completes the trilogy of what Frank Black is to me.

I see this album in used wracks all the time, and say to myself "how could anyone not like that album?" I'll actually give ita 3.5 stars, because it does have more then one song that falls flat, but in general it is a brilliant romp from a mind that has probably suffered through one too many acid trips. I would say a must have for a fan of Mr. Black.

Sadly, this album is very underrated compared to his other albums. Strangely though, many critics who loved his first 2 solo hated this and many who hated his first 2 loved Cult. There isn't as much diversity as Black is capable of, I don't think there were any two songs from his first 7 albums that sounded the same, but on Cult there are 4 or 5 well produced punky surf songs that sort of blend together. That's fine though. One comment, someone said there was only 40 minutes of music on this disc, originally Black had this one almost as long as Teenager, but the record company made him cut it. 7 of the songs (a few better than the average cut on here) can be found on the B-sides collection Oddballs. There is also another B-side on the "I don't want to hurt you" single, if you're an intense completist. If you love this album though, get Oddballs, it has lots of awesome stuff on it.

I am wondering if any people trashing this album have ever listened to it. This album rocks. It closely resembles Frank's first two solo albums, but is perhaps a little further out there when it comes to "spacey" lyrics. It reminds me of "Trompe De LaMonde." Moreover "Last Stand of Shazeb Andleeb" and "Jesus was Right" are some of Frank's best songs, ever. If you are a real Frank Black fan, you will like this album, a lot.

I was disappointed with this album. As a huge fan of his work with the pixies (all 10 star albums, on a scale of 1-5) and more recently of his work with the catholics I couldn't believe this when I heard it. It's not that this album is bad, I would gladly listen to this over any radio airplay/MTV crap, but I would rather listen to any other album associated with Frank Black than this. The problem is that he sounds like he ran out of his normal brilliant ideas for this album and gave us one anyway. Granted some songs are good (Punk Rock City, Jesus Was Right, Men In Black) but some are plain stupid and sophmoric (kicked in the taco). I can only reccomend this to Frank Black fanatics (of which I am one), but I think anyone else will be even more disappointed than I was

Some good tracks such as Marsist and The Men In Black (very Trompe Le Monde Pixies) but the album is crippled by inferior tracks such as Cult of Ray and Creature Crawling, which sound like songs looking for a melody.
After the first two amazing albums this unfortunately where the cracks started to show.
"I don't want to hurt you" is a pleasant but plodding ballad that showed the signs of the tepid songwwriting that followed on albums like Honeycomb.
Oh well I still love Frank !