The Cure are quite possibly the most notable entity to emerge from the whole of the UK gothic rock countercultural microcosm of the late 1970s and early 1980s. No other band from this scene ascended to the heights of both UK and American charts, while fluidly bridging the the concurrent movements of post-punk, gothic rock, and new wave to the extent achieved by (the initial trio of) Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey, Lol Tolhurst, (and later) Simon Gallup, Porl Thompson, Boris Williams and Roger O'Donnell. Working in a sound that spanned these concurrent interrelated subgenres, The Cure rose to the top of the underground British acts that defined the cultural moment and associated musical scene. Within a decade of forming, they reached audiences far above and beyond their contemporaries at the time, proceeding the tsunami of alternative and college rock of the mid-1990s with the massive genre and audience crossing hits of 1992's "Wish", and the widely-regarded masterpiece of three years before in 1989's "Disintegration". Unlike the albums before it, "Disintegration" bore a single mood, that of a kind of epic, depressive solitude and it revelled in doing so, at times with a majestic grandeur. For an album of such deep introspection, eccentric production qualities and muted dynamics, many now recognize "The Cure's 'Disintegration': An Oddly Comforting Masterpiece" as Jason Heller does for The Atlantic on the eve of the album's 30th anniversary tour. Though Smith later admitted “it was never our intention to become as big as this,” the Prayer tour which followed the album saw The Cure graduating to stadiums and playing marathon, career-spanning sets and in the process, the band found that they had transformed into one of the biggest alternative rock acts on the planet.
In recent years, these massive shows and career-spanning setlists have produced a string of memorable events, highlighted in "The Cure Capture 40th Anniversary Gigs with Concert Films". Waxing lyrical with Rolling Stone about the following set of tours which focused explicitly on the 1989 album, "The Cure’s Robert Smith Talks 30 Years of ‘Disintegration’: ‘The Whole Atmosphere was Somber’". In the interview, Smith cast light on the new material the band constructed in its wake; "At the same time we were rehearsing for the 30th anniversary of Disintegration, we were running through songs for the new album that we’re recording this year. I think that helped the band It’s certainly helped me light the way. It helped me to see how it was constructed. So it wasn’t done in a purposeful way, but that informed the recording of the new album". Last year with the release seeming imminent, The Cure began a world tour with the surprise return of guitarist and keyboardist Perry Bamonte, who rejoined the band for the first time in nearly two decades. Over the course of the 2023 tour, they premiered five songs from the upcoming album, which included; “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” “A Fragile Thing”, “And Nothing Is Forever”, “Endsong”, and “Alone”. Speaking with the press ahead of the NME Awards, Smith said the 8-song album was nearly finished, with the aim of releasing it in that coming fall. He characterized the music on this forthcoming album "Songs of a Lost World", as "relentlessly doom and gloom", and elaborated with NME, stating that, "The Darkness of Recent Years has Inspired their 'Merciless' New Album". We had a preview of the album framed by another of their discography-spanning setlists, in a series of North American shows including Seattle, in which "The Cure Live Review: Top Goths Tease their Bleak but Beautiful New Album". A year later, after a series of reworks and refinements of the material honed through live performance, "The Cure Deliver the Power-Doom Epic We’ve Been Waiting For". The resulting album is, "As Promised, ‘Very, Very Doom and Gloom’", yet features a bruising existential yearning, and plea for a life unlived and dreams unfulfilled, it is without reservation, "Dark, Personal, and their Best Since 'Disintegration'"
This week, Robert Smith spoke with the New York Times on, "How The Cure Became Rock’s Most Dogged Activist" and with NPR in their, "‘How it Will End is How it Will End,’ but The Cure isn’t Over, Yet" on the working of the material which became the album, born of personal loss, and a sense of the times, they produced an abundance of work, which was repeatedly delayed in its release. Smith states; "I think the mistake I made was I was trying to get 30 songs all finished together, so they all somehow hung together. And I realized at the start of this year that that really wasn't going to happen. So I reduced it down to 20, and then I reduced it down 10, and then I finally emerged with 8 that I thought worked together best. But I have left behind quite a few of my favorite songs, weirdly enough". The resulting eight tracks have finally arrived as a deluxe CD and Blu-Ray Audio, and half-speed mastering double LP, with the release of "Songs of a Lost World". A brief album for the band, coming in at just under 50 minutes, its composite songs variously find Smith and the band exploring mourning, the passing of time and mortality, and reflecting on youth, life, and love lost and spent. All the while yearning for a sense of that lived past, that feels somehow out of reach, in the baleful and divisive cultural and political atmosphere of the present day. Encapsulated by Smith in one of many such lyrical turns featured on the album; “my weary dance with age and resignation moves me slow towards a dark and empty stage”. Matching the emotional impact of the lyrical themes, the instrumentation of "Songs of a Lost World", is more direct and purposeful than much of their discography, delivered in tracks that move forward with gradual and inevitable bruising impact, while also devoid of the kind of excess volume of their later albums, where quantity and quality got confused. This is Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Jason Cooper, Reeves Gabrels, and Roger O'Donnell's weighty, spare, and concise statement on our times. Concurrent with the album's release on Friday, November 1, “The Cure Announce London Show to Launch New Album”, convening at Troxy, London, which was presented in a global livestream. This performance, in which ”Songs of Innocence and Experience Combined Spectacularly in Intimate Setting” has been archived and remains on the band's video page for all to see and be enticed into the embrace of their Lost World.
