The Cure – Songs of a Lost World review

Leave aside the wait for a second. Think instead about the devices which make Songs of a Lost World a contradiction in terms. It’s an album about death, grief and the slipping away of purpose, with at times astonishingly personal lyrics addressing some or all of these topics. But simultaneously it often feels like Robert Smith wants to share but not stay, somebody reading from a diary but then leaving the room as soon as it’s done.

The other constant push and pull is between what is frequently a tidal wave of noise and it’s beating back of the atmospheric darkness; Jason Cooper’s drums in particular sound like artillery, a surrendering of the chance for intimacy through quiet.

This is not to say that at it’s core sixteen years of waiting for a new Cure album are ended by a sense of being underwhelmed. Opener Alone – now familiar after opening every one of their most recent shows – is simply gorgeous, And Nothing Lasts Forever Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds levels of epic, All I Ever Am a tangential look back to the simpler times of their musical decades past.

Emotionally these are deep waters for Smith, presenting a route to catharsis after the deaths of some of those most close to him. Closer Endsong, with it’s ten minutes plus duration utterly non-negotiable you feel for his part, is so muscularly bleak that peering over the edge gives the sensation of falling forever. Like much of the rest of this grand, beautiful, flawed record, it’s an exercise in pulling opposites together, one that few artists would even try in such an instant consumption era. It was never destined to be perfect – and that weakness is Songs of a Lost World’s most appealing quality.

You can read a full review here.