Simon RushworthFans of The Cult can look forward to a bumper 2019 with news that the band will be reissuing the classic Sonic Temple album and taking the A Sonic Temple tour to 10 UK cities this autumn.
This year marks the 30thanniversary of Sonic Temple and Beggars Arkive are pulling out all the stops to celebrate a seminal hard rock release.
Re-released and re-imagined within a deluxe box set, across five CDs and as a double album, the band’s 1989 standard has never sounded better.
Produced by the legendary Bob Rock, Sonic Temple boasted four chart-busting singles – Fire Woman, Edie (Ciao Baby), Sun Kingand Sweet Soul Sister.
“We wanted to retain our core DNA as we went deeper into psych and hard rock influences,” said frontman Ian Astbury of a genuine Cult classic.
“It was a complete immersion for me into art, film, music, poetry and literature, weaving those influences into what was to become Sonic Temple.
“The band was becoming more popular. We were in uncharted waters. Most of the bands we had come up with had split up or fallen off. We were accelerating.
“There was no real time to breathe. We were forming new allegiances and breaking the glass ceiling of ‘the indie outsider’.”
Sonic Temple catapulted The Cult towards superstar status and remains thei band’s most commercially successful release.
It has sold more than 1.5 million copies in the US alone and was declared platinum in 1990. Sonic Temple rocketed all the way to number 10 on the Billboard charts.
The setlist for the A Sonic Temple tour draws on The Cult’s 10 studio albums with the centrepiece a superb section that’s focused on the core songs from Sonic Temple – some of these songs have not been performed since the album was originally released.
Guitarist Billy Duffy added: “I’d like fans to not only allow themselves a little indulgence into maybe simpler, happier times of the late 80s for a few hours at a ST19 show but also be happy that the music is now really their possession, not ours, and they can do with it what they will.”
The Sonic Temple box set contains three pieces of vinyl and a cassette plus tour memorabilia (replica of original laminate, backstage pass, original press releases, label copy and more). It’s numbered and limited to 3000 pieces worldwide and contains 40 tracks, four of which are previously unreleased. LP1+2 contain the album as originally released. LP3 contains Live At Wembley recorded by the BBC, and the included cassette contains limited-release demos. Four of the live tracks are previously unreleased.
The five-CD set contains 53 tracks (including six previously unreleased) with the original album on disc one, alternate edits, mixes, extended versions and acoustic versions on disc two, limited-release demos on discs three and four and Live At Wembley on disc five. Six of the live tracks are previously unreleased. It is packaged in book form with rare photographs and interviews with the band by UK journalist James Brown.
The double LP is a revamped reissue of the original album. Now cut onto two pieces of black vinyl, the audio is improved and contains 16 tracks in total – the original album plus six B-sides. It’s been out of print for more than 20 years.
The digital version will replicate the CD-set but excludes the original album for a total of 43 tracks.
The Sonic Temple reissues are available from September 13 and the band’s October dates are as follows:
Tue 15th Nottingham, UK – Rock City
Thu 17th Birmingham, UK – O2 Academy
Fri 18th Cardiff, Wales – Cardiff University
Sun 20th Leeds, UK – O2 Academy
Mon 21st Aberdeen, Scotland – The Music Hall
Tue 22nd Glasgow, Scotland – O2 Academy
Thu 24th Manchester, UK – Apollo
Sun 27th London, UK – Eventim Apollo
Mon 28th Bristol, UK – O2 Academy
Tue 29th Portsmouth, UK – Guildhall
Tickets are on sale from Friday July 5th at 10am – visit www.myticket.co.uk