The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
In order to talk about The Cure in this moment—as Songs of a Lost World brings the legendary goth pioneers back to shelves and streaming after a 16-year absence—I have to first talk briefly about one of the artists they’ve most famously informed. This new LP feels like a long-form interpretation of the same kind of recontextualization we heard with “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails. In Trent Reznor’s hands, the original emotional centerpiece of The Downward Spiral was about shrinking from your surroundings, disappearing from all you do and love, leaving them alone. Subsequently covered by Johnny Cash, the script felt flipped to address those worldly connections as they disappear with the march of time, leaving you alone.
So runs the backstory of Songs of a Lost World. Constant loss in frontman Robert Smith’s life, a string of his family members dying throughout the 2010s, logistically delayed and thematically guided this new album well beyond a planned 2019 release. The results, finally here, document that the world being lost is Smith’s own set of connections. Even considering the band’s long reputation for music that looks at the concept of isolation from many different points of view, Songs of a Lost World is uniquely powerful given its focus on the heft of reality, avoiding romantic love songs and sci-fi/fantasy. With tracks like “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” an elegy to Smith’s late brother Richard, we’re listening to another esteemed man in black work through the five stages of grief behind a guitar and a microphone.
Sound surrounds us on this album without being suffocating. It’s a density that suggests how much The Cure have quietly expanded beyond post-punk to inform post-rock, triggering memories of music I’ve heard from acts like Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky. We’ve seen it throughout prior releases, but Smith and his mates are singularly strong here on letting their instrumentals breathe, going full bore on developing atmosphere for minutes before any lyric is uttered. Tension and drama led by guitarist Reeves Gabrels’ studio debut with the band and Jason Cooper’s big-room drums, then Smith’s voice guiding us through the fog, comprise a winning formula for Songs of a Lost World even in more concise cuts like “Drone:Nodrone.” Special editions of the album include wordless versions of its tracks; reach “Endsong,” and you’ll understand this speaks less to a cash grab and more to an unfiltered opportunity to explore just how affecting this band has always been.
The most positive-sounding arrangement here comes from “And Nothing is Forever,” its major-key strings and synths swelling in much the same manner as “A Letter to Elise” did in 1992. But while fully capable of and massively successful at chipper, almost bubblegum pop hooks, dark Cure really is the best Cure. (Fittingly, “And Nothing is Forever” also appears to be Smith’s promise to be at someone’s deathbed.) Songs of a Lost World is a sharp reminder of how necessary, how meaningful it can be to have music—their music in particular—soundtrack episodes of both malaise and catharsis. The Cure make a good cry that much better, make sex a little more serious, make midnight drives more mysterious. That Smith feels comfortable enough to turn a long period of mourning and psychic pain into useful, relatable art for the rest of us is a gift without adequate compensation.
Is this album at the level of Disintegration, as some early evaluators have claimed? I might concur, but I’m no diehard. I’m sure skeptics might call such a claim just an attempt to fill a years-old vacuum—”you’ll dance to anything” is a time-worn canard, but sometimes an accurate one. All I ask is that you let Songs of a Lost World hang in the air and see how quickly, and strongly, you bond with it. Something this wicked might not come this way again.
Label: Fiction/Capitol
Year: 2024
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The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
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