Songs of a Lost World: The Cure’s Comeback Album Sounds Like They Never Left

I first listened to The Cure in the early spring of 2018, when their hit jangle pop single “Boys Don’t Cry” came on the local radio station 106.3, back when it housed what was perhaps the only pure alternative rock station in the Des Moines Metro area, rather than one of the million sports stations clogging up the airwaves at any given moment. I instantly fell in love with the song and ran to look up the lyrics the second I got home. After four more years of their music invading my Spotify playlists, I asked for a CD of their acclaimed album Disintegration for my birthday and the rest was history.

I never thought I would hear a new The Cure record in my lifetime, but when I did, I was blown away. The band sounds exactly the same as they did in their prime! It’s genuinely shocking how well-preserved they are musically, especially considering their advanced age. Appropriately, age seems to be the lyrical throughline of the record, with standout tracks like “Alone “ and “Endsong” illustrating vocalist and main songwriter Robert Smith’s reflections on the shortness of life and love as life moves into its twilight years.

Overall, the mood of the album is atmospheric and slightly gloomy, with none of the poppy love songs that skyrocketed the group to fame over forty years ago. At only eight tracks, the album is quite short, but I would still recommend it to goths, music geeks, and generally cool people of all sorts. And before you ask, the six-minute-long intros are completely necessary!