The Cure Have A Grieving and Triumphant Return to Music in ‘Songs of a Lost World’
Almost exactly 16 years after their last record, The Cure have released their newest album, Songs of a Lost World. As the band continued to play sold-out three hour shows around the world for the last two decades, fans have long awaited new music from the goth icons. Under musings of evocative instrumentals and Robert Smith’s never-aging voice, the record ponders ideas around mortality, loss, and love at its most intense. On an album that features only eight tracks and rings in at 49 minutes, we see The Cure at a new career best: vulnerable and sonically adventurous.
The opening track and first promotional single for the album, “Alone” begins with a three minute slow-burning rock instrumental that haunts and allures. Finally, Smith’s vocals begin to say “This is the end of every song that we sing.” The tone of the entire record is set with this track at the forefront.
Unlike past records with upbeat love melodies such as “Mint Car” or “Lovesong.” The singular “love song” on the record, according to Smith himself is track number 2, “And Nothing is Forever” in which Smith details the desire to be with a loved one until they lie on their deathbed. A more macabre way of looking at love, for sure, but falls perfectly in line with The Cure’s typically lyricism, but the record itself. Love and loss becomes a potent theme, as Smith’s brother also receives a dedicated ballad in his honor following his passing. In the time from 2008’s ‘4:13’ and the latest release, Smith has lost his mother, father and brother, guiding his songwriting to allow for his heartbreak to ring on new tracks. In an interview with NME in 2019, Smith says, “Before I used to write about stuff that I thought I understood. Now I know I understand it. The lyrics I’ve been writing for this album, for me personally, are more true. They’re more honest. That’s probably why the album itself is a little bit more doom and gloom.”
The almost-cinematic nature of the instrumentals on the album display the true professionalism and establish the group as masters of the rock and roll craft. In conjunction with the gloomy nature of the other six ballads on the record, “Drone:Nodrone” and “Warsong” bring an electrifying strum of energy with wailing industrial guitar melodies and thrumming drums that echo the melancholia that Smith croons.
Credit: Jason Squires/FilmMagic
The final two tracks close out the record ring of the aforementioned “doom and gloom” that Smith mentioned in 2019, but also shine a small light of hope in the bleak darkness of the end. “All I Ever Am” brings the metal tom-heavy from the previous tracks, alongside Smith’s worries of life vocalized, with the opening verse saying, “I think too much of all that's gone/ Of how it was before my thoughts/ Obsessed with choices made for sure/ In ignorance of history/ And consequence as more and more/ I misremember hopelessly.” The nearly upbeat nature of the track almost disguises how self-conscious and aware the lyrics are. It’s easy to nod your head to the melodic strum of the guitar that echoes familiar favorites like “Boy’s Don’t Cry” or “Why Can’t I Be You?”, but Smith speaks to the collective idea of regret and just how human it is to ruminate on anything and everything.
To close out, it’s fitting title “Endsong” is a ten-minute rock noir ballad that takes bits of the best from the entire album, some of the featured poignant drumming from Jason Cooper, alongside a dark thrumming mixture of guitar and bass from newcomer Reeves Gabrels and long-time member Simon Gallup. The song reflects on Smith’s experience watching the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The recollection of the night of bright stars and landing on the moon, becomes something of an eerie form of nostalgia, with the outro chanting “Left alone with nothing at the end of every song,” which descends into repetition of the word “Nothing.” It’s an all encompassing, thrashing, and clashing ending to this new journey The Cure has taken us on.
With a discography as extensive and consistent as The Cure has, it can be difficult to not point fingers at the predecessors to Songs of a Lost World. Although the familiar immersive post-punk instrumental that can be heard on this album can be traced back to the familiar sound of their early work, The Cure never fails to outwardly mature and grow from album to album. The honesty and philosophical nature of this new release is something refreshing, yet balances the dread of life all at once. How lucky are we to love, and to remember; and how sad are we to know that it will all come to an end.
