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
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.