Michael Cullen - True Believer

Michael Cullen fancies himself the Australian answer to Nick Cave, Tom Waits or even Leonard Cohen. That’s a bold goal for only a second album, and indeed Cullen’s sophomore effort has a way to go before reaching Waits levels of dark, rambling greatness. His second solo album, True Believer, released in 2014 and it’s a solid start on Cullen’s road to achieving his raspy, sullen musical dreams. Having re-released a radio edit of the first single, “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour,” in May and an accompanying video, here’s hoping he gains a larger following for his unique indie brand of jazz and blues.
It’s clear both in presentation and in lyrics who Michael Cullen’s muses are for his music. Hints of all the great indie rambler lounge jazz artists can be heard in most of his songs. In addition to Cave, Waits and Cohen, there are lashings of Morrissey, Ian Curtis of Joy Division and Chris Rea. With these influences, Cullen has all the makings of a great indie/goth/blues/country artist.
Michael Cullen is a native of Sydney, Australia and grew up playing in various post-punk bands in the 80s and early 90s. He began working with Tim Powles, another Aussie who is best known for his drum work with post-punk legends, The Church. The two have been collaborating for almost 20 years and Powles helped produce both True Believer and Cullen’s first solo album, 2012’s Love Transmitter.
In the afore-mentioned Love Transmitter, Cullen’s style doesn’t seem quite as well-developed as it is in True Believer. It’s not a bad album but it also didn’t get much press and Cullen himself was unable to tour due to undisclosed-to-press-jerks-like-me health problems, so harm no foul. In this album Cullen seems to not have found the balance quiet yet between his post-punk past and his lounge lizard future. His guitars say Nick Cave or Tom Waits, but his voice and lyrics are post-punk at best and indie pop at worst.
True Believer is a far superior product to Love Transmitter. On this album Cullen has found deeper and more resonant tones for his vocals and he has taken a hint from his gravely-voiced idols by telling stories with his lyrics and creating powerful images with words. “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour” is probably the best example of Cullen’s new style, as it comes as close as anyone ever has to Waits levels of imagery, apathy and lost soul cache.
Cullen’s guitar is already very well-heeled but has a greater purpose in this single of helping to ratchet up that desolate, lonely-lounge-lizard-on-a-dirt-road-looking-for-love feeling established by the lyrics and vocals. If Cullen is still eking out a style for himself, this is the direction I suggest he takes.
The video for “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour” confirms my suspicions that Cullen makes the perfect lonely lounge singer, and indeed it also confirms the imagery that he’s already created in the song with his lyrics. The gaunt, slightly awkward Cullen is dressed in an ill-fitting gold suit, singing to no one but an equally lonely-looking waitress in a closed bar somewhere in the desert. It’s all there, and it’s both apathetic and emotive, empty and soulful. This is the mark of the Ian Curtises, the Tom Waitses and the Nick Caves of the world: the ability to sound eternally bored while still connoting such strong feeling through voice and story. I think he’s on his way, this Cullen.




While “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour” is the best song on True Believer, it is not the only good one. All the songs are well-written and well-produced, and Cullen sticks to the retro format he loves by recording on vintage tapes and using vintage semi-acoustic guitars to get the effects he wants. He worked with both Powles and master mixer Danton Supple, who did mastering for Morrissey and Coldplay, to hammer home that haunting, dusty feel which is present throughout the album.
In some songs like “Black Dog” and “Nothing Special,” that indie post-punk feel creeps in again, mostly through a higher-toned vocal track. Cullen seems to have gotten better at merging the two styles, however, because when the alt rock feel does creep in, it doesn’t sound as schizophrenic as it did on Love Transmitter. Other songs like “Black Coffee and Cigarettes” and “I Walk Alone,” however, stick out as highlights similar to “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour.” Cullen weaves in lashings of junkyard country, slide guitar blues and more cha cha beat structures to create the vintage ironic indie feel he’s going for. These compositions do such a great job of underlining Cullen’s lyrics and the stories he tells, I sincerely don’t know why he would go for any other style. Only time will tell if he becomes as adept as Nick Cave or Morrissey at weaving post-punk music structures into his work, but for now he’s got a great handle on the more ironic lounge jazz side of it, and that suits me just fine.
With his lounge lizard persona and brooding voice, Cullen has found in himself a gifted storyteller to add to his already more than decent guitar and songwriting skills. It is a tough genre this post-punk lounge lizard is trying to work in, and an even more difficult pantheon of musical legends he is trying to emulate. With True Believer and the new video for “Cha Cha Cha d’Amour,” Cullen has nonetheless taken a solid bite out of achieving this weird niche goal of being the next Nick Cave or Tom Waits. Godspeed, wayward alt rocker. Godspeed.
Jul 23 2015