The Cure, Songs of a Lost World: REVIEW

The Cure, Songs of a Lost World (Fiction/Universal)

We were promised pervasive stories about death, romance and the macabre, and a return to the form that also pushes sonic boundaries. Robert Smith has delivered on all these promises with this opus of an album. 

Save for maybe one flat song (“And Nothing Is Forever”), this album is practically flawless, harkening back to the endless black nights of the Cure’s ’80s discography. And it gets better with every listen. We have Smith’s magnetic vocals, unaltered by time. His delivery on songs like “Alone” and “A Fragile Thing” sound as pure and sorrowful as they did back in 1982. For a 65-year-old, this is no small feat.  

This album is full of the anthemic goth rock that the Cure helped write the book on. It’s a slow burn that doesn’t try to rewrite that book, except for maybe the guitar-hero, goth-funk freakout on “Drone”NoDrone.” There are some instrumental flourishes: a gorgeous guitar line here, a few gothic piano chords and gigantic bass and drums there. Smith has already said he’s writing another album, but if this were the Cure’s swan song, there’s nothing to be mad at. 8/10 Trial Track: “A Fragile Thing”

For more on the Cure, please visit their website.

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