I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: February 17, 2025] Cult of Venus

It was a cold windy night when we headed out to this show.  Luckily, we managed to get really close parking (Monday night shows are good for that).  Which meant we were plenty early to see the opening act, Cult of Venus.

Cult of Venus has had a lot of mystery surrounding her.  I’m sure her identity is known (I didn’t look too hard to find it), but the two main articles I saw gave this info:

Forgoing any photos to remain completely anonymous and undefined, Cult of Venus have given themself the perfect platform from which to build and long and exciting career. ][They make] music that illustrates and illuminates the dystopian world today, challenging the patriarchy and resonating with the “divine feminine.” Her on-the-ground activist work includes support for incarcerated women and environmental protest movements. Her mysterious presentation is often shrouded in darkness, with her identity and face in the shadows. Her secretive appearance aligns her poetic soundscape in a way that not only drives more curiosity to her audience but is calming in a world so focused on desperate self-promotion.  With shows in all-female prisons and detention centres in the books already, as well as a show as part of New York City’s Women’s March, Cult of Venus have a big year planned while being rooted in reform.

They opened the show with a prerecorded message about strength in the face of oppression.  And then she came out, picked up her guitar and stood in front of the keyboard.  

The only problem to me was the fairly lengthy (I mean, it was probably less than a minute, but it was SO QUIET) pause before the first song started.  I feel like she could have timed that a little more smoothly.  But whatever.

She generated some beats and some synths and proved to have a fantastic voice.  When she played guitar, she clearly had it patched into an effects box because it didn’t sound like a guitar–it was very cool.

Time Capsule was a very cool song which also started with a drum and synth build up.  It was quiet as it began with a simple riff on the keys and about half way through she stepped away from the keys and played the riff on  the guitar and it was electrifying.  Very cool stuff.

For Mountains, she used a modulator on her voice which was interesting, but I didn’t enjoy the song quite as much.  But man her voice was incredible.

She said this was a homecoming show of sorts because her mom was in the audience (Articles suggest she is from LA, so I don’t know what any of that means, but whatever).  I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but the audience was insanely respectful during the pauses (again, her pauses were pretty long and QUIET).  I mean, while she sipped water and set up the keys, it was absolutely silent in the room.  I wondered if saying your mom was in the audience was a great ploy to get the audience to be nice to you.  

When she sang Silence (I think it was Silence) she walked away from the keys and stood in the middle of the stage sideways, microphone away from her mouth.  She then sang really loudly demonstrating once again her incredible voice and incredible power.  At the end of the song she did it again and hit a really impressive high note, too.

Her new single Algorithm had a cool dark synth riff that I really liked.  Her whole vibe gave me a kind of 80th synth goth feeling–with a high, disembodied voice over the synths.  

What was kind of weird was that for both my wife and me, her stage presence was a little off putting.  We couldn’t quite put our finger on it, but it felt a bit… much, maybe?  But what was odd about that was that she wasn’t all that different from Lauren Mayberry (except that she was all in darkness).  And I wondered if it was the curse of the opening act.  If the audience loves you, you can get away with anything.  I mean, Lauren Mayberry did some poses that got wild cheers from the audience, which I always think is weird.  And her toss away comments received very loud laughter (at least from the people around me).  It was clear that people liked Cult of Venus (she was very well received), but maybe without knowing anything about her, the poses and sincerity of her intros seemed … forced?  Which is a shame, because I enjoyed her set quite a lot.  And I’m curious to see what happens to her going forward.  I mean at this point she only has four singles out.

SETLIST

1. Dedication
2. Time Capsule
3. Mountains
4. Sinner
5. Silence
6. Algorithm