Dreamtime

Dreamtime is the debut studio album by the Cult, released on 31 August 1984 on Beggars Banquet. It reached No. 21 on the UK Albums Chart and later went silver with the BPI, after 60,000 sales. Its first single, "Spiritwalker", topped the UK Independent Singles Chart. The sound is dramatic, moody and darkly psychedelic, with chiming guitar that sits close to what U2 were chasing at the time.

The songs borrow widely from myth and history. "Spiritwalker" nods to shamanism, the title track draws on Aboriginal Australian mythology, and "Butterflies" refers to the Hopi butterfly dance. The words to "Horse Nation" come almost straight from the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, while "A Flower in the Desert" reworks "Flowers in the Forest" by the band's earlier incarnation, Southern Death Cult. Production passed from Joe Julian to John Brand, though Billy Duffy says Julian's drum tracks stayed, as Nigel Preston had become too unreliable.