VIA PRESS RELEASE | Death Cult laid the groundwork for the band we now know as The Cult, and in 2023, to mark the band’s 40th anniversary, Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy along with John Tempesta on drums and Charlie Jones on bass, revived Death Cult for a special run of shows.
Out on January 16th, 2026, Paradise Live is a 16-track live album that documents this rebirth of Death Cult. Recorded at the iconic Albert Hall in Duffy’s hometown of Manchester on November 18th, 2023, the release will be available on double LP, CD, and digitally. Two editions of the vinyl will be available. A black splatter edition is available exclusively from the band’s webstore, and a white splatter edition is available everywhere else.
As New Noise magazine wrote, “Ian and Duffy are brothers in musical cause and are counterparts to a quintessential era of Gothic New Wave or First Wave, Camden-era punk. Death Cult were the brothers of The Clash and Siouxie and The Banshees. They were in the scene. And now they are progenitors of alternative music from Los Angeles.”
Ian spoke to Spin in October who explained that “the idea of resurrecting the Death Cult name came to Astbury after spending time with those old songs, while also noticing a new generation of artists embracing a similar darkwave sound (Vowws, Cold Cave, Molchat Doma, Twin Tribes, et al.), which he likes to call “gothic futurism.” It felt relevant to the times, and his feelings for a world racing toward a dead end in the 21st Century, which he describes with a grim stream of labels: “Zero point, dystopia, a glitch in the matrix…”. “I became fascinated with that period of music again,” Astbury says. “It just instinctually felt like picking up on a dystopian frequency.”
The Cult’s first incarnation was Southern Death Cult, formed in 1981, releasing their sole, self-titled album posthumously in 1983. That same year, Death Cult formed, with Ian Astbury joining forces with Billy Duffy for a musical partnership that has endured for 40+ years. Death Cult became The Cult in 1984, releasing Dreamtime that same year.
The Cult has gone on to sell more than four million albums with numerous international and US gold and platinum certifications. Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy have released 11 studio albums over The Cult’s 40-year career. The band found international renown with the 1985 album, Love, which featured the enduring rock anthem “She Sells Sanctuary,” as well as the oft-heard follow-up single “Rain.”
Electric arrived in 1987, with Rolling Stone saying the collection of songs (particularly “Love Removal Machine,” “Wild Flower,” and “Lil’ Devil”) “swaggers, crunches and howls.” Most recently, The Cult released Under the Midnight Sun. Mojo, in a review of the eight-song album, said “rock’s unquenchable melodramatists have the fire in their eyes still.”
