The Cure: Songs of a Lost World

Although it’s been 16 years, the Cure were always going to return if only to remind us how bleak the world really is. Had their fourteenth studio album, Songs of a Lost World, landed today instead of seven days prior, then it may have been the timeliest record ever released. It still might be if one considers the Cure prescient…

The last time the Cure released new music, the world was a very different place. Political leaders have come and gone (and sadly one in particular has come again). Tech has moved at blistering speed where smart phones and Wi-Fi weren’t even a thing, while auto tune, social media and AI have pushed the globe to frightening new levels that even Robert Smith couldn’t have predicted back in the early ’00s.

This concoction of chaos makes the Cure’s return a welcomed one. And while Songs of a Lost World maybe many things, it sees the Cure functioning between worlds past, present and future, whilst at times dizzyingly cross-pollinating all three.

Any new release from the Cure will welcome a wide range of opinions, sparking debate and where it should be placed in their oeuvre. There will be adoration and disappointment, but ultimately (like always) there is no right or wrong. Just moments. And Songs of a Lost World has many.

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While certain parts of the Cure’s canon have been blunted by sound-a-likes and their flagrant plagiarising of the band’s template crafted so finely many years ago (Pornography), the Cure have moved swiftly to other parts of their sound world where they are simply unreachable. This is exactly where Songs of a Lost World exists. Funnily enough, in the case of Pornography, Songs of a Lost World is the first record to contain as little as eight songs since the 1982 release.

Brevity or not, it’s always mattered little. On Songs of a Lost World, there’s desolation, faded hope and even through the miasma of sorrow, the Cure still manage to eke out a unique grace that melts the heart. Through tired eyes, this weariness is no blight, but in fact the album’s greatest strength, as Smith is the orchestrator of something that feels comfortably worn into the grooves.

Smith is joined once again by bassist Simon Gallup and drummer Jason Cooper, while Roger O’Donnell returns to the fold having sat out 4:13 Dream. Despite being in the band since 2012, guitarist Reeves Gabrels makes his debut on record.

And it doesn’t take long for him to make his mark. On Alone, alongside O’Donnell’s whirring synths and Gallup’s rolling bass line, the trio create a wistful atmosphere for Smith to part with his opening words. (“This is the end of every song that we sing.”) Each line he delivers, like prose dripping from the page, and with a line like “We toast with bitter dregs, to our emptiness”, the storm clouds roll in. (Again, that prescience.)

On And Nothing Is Forever, O’Donnell’s sweeping synths, Cooper’s arena-like drum fills and Gallup’s low-slung bass just about pulls Smith from the mire of mortality as he addresses a loved one from another universe (“Promise you’ll be with me in the end / Say we’ll be together and that you won’t forget / However far away / You will remember me in time”. In many ways, it feels like the younger sibling of Out of This World.

And speaking of quintessential Cure, A Fragile Thing is just that. Sonically, between the playful keys of the ’80s and cloak of doom post-Disintegration, Smith reaches the same levels of despair as Mark Eitzel’s early musings in American Music Club (“Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart”).

Elsewhere, and the warm, ringing distortion of Warsong sees Gabrels creating a thick blanket of fog for Smith to navigate through in what is yet another blast zone (“The pain of broken dreams and the hope that might have been”). Then there’s the proto-punk of Drone: Nodrone, which sees the Cure deliver a turbulent concoction that would be welcomed on any Cure release. Gabrels’ sweltering wah-wah distortion and Gallup’s hooping bass lines, a sonic bedding for Smith to search through the “endless black nights looking for more”. It’s what he’s always done.

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A devastating tale centred on the sudden loss of Smith’s brother, Richard, I Can Never Say Goodbye is a beautiful requiem barely held together by jaundiced keys before crumbling under the emotional weight. And the trauma residue drips into All I Ever Am, which sees Smith navigating through the aftershocks, picking up the pieces from the wreckage in bid to move forward (“I lose all my life like this / Reflecting time and memories / And all for fear of what I’ll find”).

Most wondered what the Cure would produce following the underwhelming 4:13 Dream all those years ago. Their greatest boon has always been their candidness in exposing life’s truths, and with the bumps and scrapes that age often brings, perhaps the Cure haven’t been more honest, reaching even greater depths inside the emotional well.

In the past, Smith has spoken of Bloodflowers being the third part of a trilogy that includes Pornography and Disintegration. Songs of a Lost World feels a part of another altogether, starting with Bloodflowers followed by The Cure and ending here. Thematically and sonically, these albums align in what is like being swept up in a rolling dreamscape. Songs of a Lost World that final piece of the puzzle, completing something that is frighteningly powerful and deeply hypnotic.

On Endsong, Smith finds similar desolation and the bitterness that he toasts on Alone. “No hopes / No dreams / No world”. It’s another stark reminder of the morbid truths we’re faced with today. Not that we needed Robert Smith to tell us that. But oddly enough, he proves to be a rather comforting conduit during a time where there doesn’t feel like any comfort at all.

Songs of a Lost World is out now via Lost Music Limited. Purchase here.