A man in a suit, an old guitar and a voice like sandpaper dipped in honey.
Michael P Cullen tells bittersweet stories in a well worn baritone with echoes of American pulp detective writers, 60s Vegas and Southern Gothic Americana.
Critics Voice
Rip it Up Magazine (Brisbane)songs about regret, bitterness and a love gone sour. The vocals are a rich baritone cocktail of spoken word, singing and crooning while [Tim]Powles provides seamless, charming accompaniment on the keys and drums. It’s intoxicating. It has to be experienced.
24our Magazine (Montreal)more than just a singer, more than just a poet, but some exciting new thing in between.
Monster Magnet Records (Los Angeles)the Sydney-based lounge lizard artfully marries Southern Gothic dustiness to black-sequined seediness in a way that actually reveals a true sense of class.
Sydney Morning HeraldInspired by the likes of Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, you nevertheless get a very Michael Cullen experience. He is strong and has a distinctive baritone vocal that weaves through the music, making this album unique, and uniquely valuable. 4.5 Stars
Back Seat Mafia (London)True Believer is a hedonistic, lush, red velvet-curtained fragile and beautiful album. Imbued with the sexual frustration and louche ambivalence of Robert Forster from The Go-Betweens and underpinned by a Nick Cave-like gothic baritone darkness, each listen reveals more complex layers, greater humour and a melodic strength. Every song is great – flashes of Tindersticks and Leonard Cohen weaving in and out of this lounge-room lothario performing in a haze of smoke and whiskey.
Rip it Up Magazine (Brisbane)songs about regret, bitterness and a love gone sour. The vocals are a rich baritone cocktail of spoken word, singing and crooning while [Tim]Powles provides seamless, charming accompaniment on the keys and drums. It’s intoxicating. It has to be experienced.
24our Magazine (Montreal)more than just a singer, more than just a poet, but some exciting new thing in between.
Monster Magnet Records (Los Angeles)the Sydney-based lounge lizard artfully marries Southern Gothic dustiness to black-sequined seediness in a way that actually reveals a true sense of class.
Sydney Morning HeraldInspired by the likes of Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits, you nevertheless get a very Michael Cullen experience. He is strong and has a distinctive baritone vocal that weaves through the music, making this album unique, and uniquely valuable. 4.5 Stars
Back Seat Mafia (London)True Believer is a hedonistic, lush, red velvet-curtained fragile and beautiful album. Imbued with the sexual frustration and louche ambivalence of Robert Forster from The Go-Betweens and underpinned by a Nick Cave-like gothic baritone darkness, each listen reveals more complex layers, greater humour and a melodic strength. Every song is great – flashes of Tindersticks and Leonard Cohen weaving in and out of this lounge-room lothario performing in a haze of smoke and whiskey.
Rip it Up Magazine (Brisbane)songs about regret, bitterness and a love gone sour. The vocals are a rich baritone cocktail of spoken word, singing and crooning while [Tim]Powles provides seamless, charming accompaniment on the keys and drums. It’s intoxicating. It has to be experienced.