Sonic Temple

The Cult stuck to their guns on their fourth album by igniting sexual charges (“Sun King,” “Sweet Soul Sister”) and keeping a kind of shamanistic shroud over things (“Medicine Train,” “Soldier Blue”). Singer Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy offer up a bounty of big-drum, big-riff philosophies and hedonistic dreams that come off as rare insights for mainstream hard rock. The ballad to Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick (“Edie, \[Ciao, Baby\])” is the album centerpiece, but “Fire Woman” proved they were the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band in 1989. Millions of album buyers agreed.

More varied than its predecessor, Electric, Sonic Temple finds the Cult trying several different metal styles, from crunchy Electric-era '70s grooves and the fuzzy, noisy psychedelia of Love, to mellow ballads and commercial '80s hard rock.