POP MUSIC REVIEW : THE CULT’S FILTERED FLOWER POWER

You say you missed out on the Fillmore during the Summer of Love? Well, you had your chance to make up for it on Sunday at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where the English band the Cult presided over a fashion flashback. Flowing into the picturesque crowd’s prevailing punkism was an unmistakable Haight-Ashbury current, marked by fringed jackets, long hair and headbands. Olifactory accessories included incense and patchouli oil.

Singer-founder Ian Astbury and his partners in the Cult are probably going to spend a lot of time denying that they’re ‘60s revivalists, and they can use their music as evidence. But when you come on as Jim Morrison Jr., as Astbury did Sunday, it’s hard to make the argument stick.

Unlike Los Angeles’ more self-consciously retrospective “paisley underground” bands, the quartet evokes some of the psychedelic era’s aura without relying on specific models. It’s sort of flower power filtered through U2 as Billy Duffy (whose blinding white pompadour takes things back to the ‘50s) builds rich, ringing structures and sets dark, dreamy moods to frame Astbury’s urgent wail. The Cult’s three or four good songs--including “She Sells Sanctuary,” “Rain” and “Revolution” (what’s the name of the group again?)--were enough to sustain momentum through lesser material.

More of a problem was the Cult’s cold, calculated approach. The band should benefit from its position as a grass-roots product of the English rock underground, but on this tour it’s really coming on strong. Its slick, big-time lighting and the backdrops that reflect the Cult’s interest in American Indian imagery served to distance the band, and overall the show stayed pretty tame--the most spontaneous moment came when Duffy, apparently reacting to equipment problems, swung his guitar into the floor.

Astbury has the best face to come out of English rock since Adam Ant, and if he figures out how to loosen up and take full advantage of his undeniable star quality, he could easily eliminate the drawbacks that dogged the Cult’s show. If not-- bummer.