4.5 stars for Lost World from Uncut

From Uncut:

The Cure – Songs Of A Lost World

Finally... the bleak yet energised 14th album

4.5/5

By Peter Watts

Dignity and despair go hand-in-hand on Songs Of A Lost World, as Robert Smith stands on the precipice of life and wonders what lies beyond. We have always known that this album would be imbued with sadness following the deaths of his parents and brother within a few years. Throughout Songs Of A Lost World, the writing is very much on the wall. Smith takes account of his life and career, asking what’s been the point of it all. “Where did it go?” he asks on stately opener “Alone” as he ponders his youthful hopes and dreams. Seven songs later, he answers that question on closing number “Endsong”. “It’s all gone”, he sings, “left alone with nothing, the end of every song”. The last word of the last song? “Nothing”.

“Alone” and “Endsong” are bound together in theme and sound – huge, dark clouds of synth and piano, a razor blade guitar and thunderous drums that are placed high in the mix like a heartbeat through a stethoscope. Few bands do atmosphere as well as The Cure, and while Songs Of A Lost World is not as angry as Pornography or as claustrophobic as Disintegration, it instead possesses an immersive, graceful beauty and more energy than you might expect. Five of these songs have been in The Cure’s setlists since 2022 and the studio versions are every bit as intense as their live counterparts but also sound a little crisper. The melodic and lyrical allusions to The Cure’s history now pop out of “And Nothing Is Forever”, while “A Fragile Thing” has a sparkle that was absent from its live incarnation. The bleak, beautiful “I Can Never So Goodbye”, with its heart-stopping line about “something wicked this way comes, to steal away my brother’s life”, remains as desolate and personal a song as Smith has ever written, but one whose incessant melody lines draws you in.

There are whispers of love and glimmers of hope, but resignation is the prevailing emotion. The gnarly grind of “Warsong” is about a friendship that turns sour, while the zesty industrial rock of “Dronenodrone” has Smith shrugging, “down down down, I’m pretty much done”. The penultimate song “All I Ever Am” is propelled by kick drum and guitar as Smith surveys everything he has achieved with a critical eye before threatening to give up “his weary dance with age” and move “toward a dark and empty stage”. We have been here before, of course – “I’ve run right out of thoughts and I’ve run right out of words”, he sang on “39” from 2000’s Bloodflowers, an album awash with imitations of the end: “One more time before it’s over…”, “when it all stops…”, “nothing left to say”. But back then, Smith had just turned 40; now in his mid-60s, Smith’s stocktake of his position is at the other end of middle age and all that entails.

The end is inevitable, but let’s hope the lights aren’t going down just yet.

Warsong clip

Clip of Warsong sent out via Whatsapp and on the Lost World site.
https://www.songsofalost.world/

4 stars for Lost World from Rolling Stone

From Rolling Stone:

The Cure Deliver the Power-Doom Epic Our Lost World Has Been Waiting For

On Songs of a Lost World Robert Smith reaches into the depths of his cobwebbed heart; it's the best Cure album since Disintegration

4/4

Article is for subscribers.

Lost World review from Brooklyn Vegan

From Brooklyn Vegan:

Review: The Cure's 'Songs of a Lost World' is a doomy, gloomy near-perfect return to form

Bill Pearis

How perfect does Robert Smith’s voice still sound? Most of his ’80s contemporaries’ pipes are shadows of what they once were, but on The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World, this is the voice you remember from “Lullaby,” “Hot Hot Hot,” “A Forest,” “The Caterpillar”; the quirks, the falsetto, the growls, the personality, the anguish and other emotions, it’s all still here. Likewise, Songs of a Lost World is The Cure you remember, especially if you’re a fan of the dark stuff. There’s no attempt to be hip with the kids, no sugary sore thumb stabs at the pop charts, just 49 minutes of gray sky melancholy, largely inspired by the death of his mother, father and brother, all of whom he lost in the 16 years since The Cure’s last album.

The desire to call Songs of a Lost World The Cure’s best album since Disintegration, or at least Wish, is there. That can be debated — Bloodflowers and 4:13 Dream may have gotten better with age (their Ross Robinson-produced 2004 self-titled album has not) — but this is definitely the most cohesive and concise since their 1989 masterpiece. It’s their shortest since 1985’s The Head on the Door and while the songs are long, the fat has been trimmed, with a fully realized dark atmosphere permeating every second, and nothing to lighten the mood. Smith called it “merciless” when the band were still working on it in 2019 but unlike Pornography, this isn’t unrelenting despair. These nine songs are thoughtful, heartfelt ruminations of mortality and loss and remembering those who are gone, not a lost soul wondering “why I am still here?” Songs of a Lost World feels like Smith is both giving Cure fans what they what want while making the album he needed to make.

That distinction is felt from with start: “Alone” is very clearly in Disintegration territory but the sound is modern; the synths are pastoral, the bassline owes a little to Twin Peaks, drums crash like waves on rocks, and little atmospheric touches swirl around your head. That you have to wait half the song’s six-minute run time for Robert Smith’s vocals to enter the scene only makes the payoff better. “This is the end of every song that we sing,” Smith wails. “The fire burned out to ash and the stars grown dim with tears.” Despite being six and a half minutes long, “Alone” almost feels short given how quickly it wraps up once Smith does start singing, but it makes more sense as the intro to the album, as he guides us down a dark, beautiful path.

“And Nothing Lasts Forever,” up next, is the album’s prettiest song, a swaying promise to a friend to be with them when they die, about the acceptance of death, and “a memory of the first time in the stillness of a teardrop / As you hold me for the last time in the dying of the light.” With piano dancing around the synth strings, it’s also the album’s warmest, most romantic moment, a fond memory that cycles back around like its melody. Things then pick up with “A Fragile Thing,” the closest Lost World comes to a pop song, very classic Cure with Simon Gallup’s bass leading the charge, tom-heavy drumming, and lyrics that read like a letter from an ex-lover (“‘every time you leave me is a lie’ she said”). Featuring the album’s best chorus, this one could’ve been on Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

At the center of Lost World are the two bleakest, stormiest moments. “War Song” is a tempest of clattering drums, pizzicato strings (think “Lullaby”), dirgey, grungy guitars, and an low undercurrent of reed organ as Smith details a broken, permanently damaged relationship. “Drone:Nodrone” is all encroaching paranoia (“I’m breaking up again, I can feel it in the air”), all searing rock guitars, hammering drums, and Smith’s most impassioned vocal performance. Between the drumming and the way he singsl “Down! Down! Down!,” it feels like close cousin to “The Hanging Garden.”

On the other side of that thunder is Songs of a Lost World‘s most personal song, “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” which is a stylized account of the night his older brother, Richard, died in 2019. Based around a simple piano hook, Smith mostly lets the music do the talking, creating a fog of doom and gloom, guitars and keyboards crashing like waves on a rocky sea, hitting as he sings, “Something wicked this way comes from out the cruel and treacherous night / Something wicked this way comes to steal away my brother’s life.”

Death hangs over Songs of a Lost Word, but so does the moon. The working title was Live From the Moon, and Smith has spoken of the effect the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing had as a 10-year-old boy, and how the 50th anniversary of that event in 2019 brought those feelings back. The title may have changed, but the moon is still very much central to the album, referenced in its final two songs of the album. “I am the sum of my memories,” Smith says of the windswept “All I Ever Am,” adding “at the same time, my memories themselves are being changed by who I am now.”

The moon landing is the direct inspiration for “Endsong” which brings the album full circle on a glacial note. “I’m outside in the dark, staring at the blood red moon, remembering the hopes and dreams I had and all I had to do,” Smith sings after a six minute intro. This and “Alone” were designed as bookends to the album, with similar song structure, pace, themes and even direct lyrical callbacks. “Endsong” is heavier, though, and more cinematic in scope, taking 10 minutes to build to its crescendo, and by the end Smith is resigned to fate. “It’s all gone / left alone with nothing / the end of every song.” The song became The Cure’s final main closer on their 2022/2023 Shows of a Lost World tour and it’s the perfect end to one of the Cure’s best records.

Robert Smith has said there could be two more Cure albums on the way, with Lost World‘s follow-up nearly finished, and the one after that at least planned out. But if this was to be the last in their discography, it would make for a satisfying closing chapter to the band’s story, wrapped up in black bow.

Warsong, Drone:No Drone, All I Ever Am lyrics

Official lyrics for Warsong, Drone:No Drone and All I Ever Am from The Cure's Songs of a Lost World.

Thanks oh_well.

5 stars for Lost World from XS Noize

From XS Noize:

ALBUM REVIEW: The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

5.0 rating 

Lori Gava

After a sixteen-year wait, Songs of a Lost World, The Cure’s highly anticipated fourteenth studio album, has finally arrived. Rumours about the release date began circulating as far back as 2018, a testament to frontman Robert Smith’s perfectionism and meticulous attention to detail.

The extensive gestation process has left fans and critics wondering: was the wait worth it? In a word, yes. Not since 1989’s Disintegration has The Cure delivered such a cohesive and emotionally resonant body of work.

Songs of a Lost World marks the band’s first release since 2008’s 4:13 Dream. Initially slated for 2019, all tracks were penned by Smith, who co-produced the album with Paul Corkett at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales. Many of these songs were played live during The Cure’s 2022-2023 Shows of a Lost World tour, giving fans a taste of the album’s dark beauty. Long-time band members joining Smith on this journey: Simon Gallup on bass, Jason Cooper on drums, Roger O’Donnell on keyboards, and Reeves Gabrels on guitar.

The album was forged during a challenging time for Smith. He lost his parents and older brother and witnessed O’Donnell’s successful battle with blood cancer. These personal tragedies are etched deeply into the album’s lyrics and sonic landscapes. In Songs of a Lost World, Smith confronts the despair of grief, loss, and mortality, unafraid to lay bare his emotions. Each track immerses the listener in his journey, revealing the pain and introspection that came with each painstaking rewrite.

The album opens with “Alone,” a powerful dirge confronting mortality head-on. It’s as if the weight of all The Cure has ever explored musically is channelled into this single track. Smith’s lyrics, “The end of every song,” resonate with the heartache of knowing that youth and innocence are irretrievably lost. It’s a stunning opener, filled with classic Cure sonics that reflect Smith’s losses with visceral force.

The second track, “And Nothing is Forever,” shifts to a more melodic feel with piano and strings, only to explode into a full-band sound. In a poignant plea, Smith begs his partner to “promise you will be with me till the end,” wrestling with the dread of dying alone. The melancholy line, “I know, I know my world is growing old…nothing lasts forever,” perfectly encapsulates the theme of mortality that threads through the album.

“A Fragile Thing” bears echoes of Wish‘s “Wendy Time,” offering a tense portrayal of a relationship strained by unresolved trauma. With a haunting refrain, Smith sings, “There is nothing you can do to change the end,” making it one of the lighter tracks on an otherwise bleak album. In “War Song,” Smith moves closer to social commentary, expressing profound anger and disillusionment. With its driving guitar riffs and organ flourishes, the song explores the destructive forces of conflict, whether personal or geopolitical: “I want your death, and you want my life.”

The record also boasts moments of pure Cure rock, like “Drone: No Drone,” which channels the energy of “Never Enough.” Smith grapples with his inability to make sense of the world—a theme he’s revisited throughout his career—with fantastic guitar work that gives the track its allure.

The album’s intros are remarkable in their patience and tension, holding the listener’s attention until the total weight of each song arrives. This method, which The Cure perfected on Disintegration, feels even more refined here, enhancing the album’s cathartic power.

Smith’s grief shines through in “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” a wrenching tribute to his late brother Richard. The opening storm recalls Disintegration’s “Same Deep Water as You” as Smith accelerates down a path of sorrow, singing, “Something wicked this way comes…it took away my brother’s life…I can never say goodbye.” The sorrow hits hard, delivering a haunting sense of finality that mirrors the universal experience of mourning.

“All I Ever Am” follows with a brisk tempo and classic Cure guitar, though its upbeat sound belies a darker reflection on fading memories and missed opportunities. Smith asks where all his hopes and dreams have gone as he confronts the relentless ticking of time and the spectre of death.

The album closes with “Endsong,” a fitting finale that revisits “Alone’s” theme with the refrain, “The end of every song.” The track’s lengthy intro builds to a sweeping, polyphonic crescendo as Smith reflects on youthful dreams and the paths left behind. “I am outside in the dark wondering how I got so old… it’s all gone…bereft of all I loved,” he sings, capturing the bitter beauty of fleeting life. “Endsong” evokes a sense of finality reminiscent of David Bowie’s farewell in Blackstar, echoing the inevitable sorrow of endings.

Songs of a Lost World immerses listeners in a heartbreaking yet cathartic experience, underscoring Robert Smith’s most personal, vulnerable work. Like Disintegration, this album finds Smith grappling with life’s biggest questions, now with the clarity of a man facing his mortality. The Cure has crafted an album that reveals more with each listen, one that stands among their finest achievements. It’s been worth every moment of the wait.

4 stars for Lost World from The Observer

From The Observer:

Kitty Empire's artist of the week

The Cure: Songs of a Lost World review – as promised, ‘very, very doom and gloom’

4/5

The band’s first album in 16 years finds Robert Smith and co on reliably melancholy form – with the exception of one out-and-out pop banger

Kitty Empire

The Cure have long dwelled in a kind of rarefied artistic blue zone in which the years pile up but the end of the band is serenely defied – maybe due to a diet rich in red wine, combined with a dogged aversion to modernity. Band leader Robert Smith does not own a smartphone; the band’s consumption of polyphenols in the 1980s was legendary.

Having crested the Cure’s jubilant 40th anniversary in 2018, Smith swiftly announced a new album for release in 2019. Cure songs often tend to take a little while to warm up – the introduction to Alone, the opening track of Songs of a Lost World, clocks in at six minutes; three minutes elapse before Smith draws breath to sing. Likewise, a mere five years on from that announcement (including two years of generous, fan-pleasing gigs), the first new Cure album since 2008 has finally been deemed ready to drop.

At a succinct eight tracks and a downright sprightly 49-minute run time, it’s a thunderous statement on grief, anomie and regret – and the passage of time, a specialist subject. What you might call “the drear oblivion of lost things”, according to the Victorian poet Ernest Dowson – whose Dregs became the jumping-off point for Alone – is a major focus.

The Cure just announced that their 14th studio album «Songs of a Lost World» will be released November 1st, 2024

All, pretty much, is lost: youth, loved ones, the familiar. The album’s cover does away with the squiggly artwork long favoured by the band, to be replaced by a lump of half-formed granite: Bagatelle, a 1975 work by Janez Pirnat, redolent of a damaged classical sculpture rescued from beneath the waves. Its grey tones recall the cover of Faith, the band’s dolorous epic from 1981.

Throughout their history, the Cure have very often bucked the gothic thumbnail sketch of their output by rotating through crisp post-punk (the early years), romantic whimsy (the pop songs) and wild psychedelic disarray (Pornography). Existential melancholy is, though, their calling card bar none. And Songs of a Lost World delivers resonantly on the first part of Smith’s promise of a triptych of new material: one album that’s “very, very doom and gloom”, one that “isn’t”, and a solo work of “noise”.

Another theme eats caustically away at many of these songs: the question of Smith’s own selfhood

This is a record that dolefully eats its own tail, an ouroboros of bleak finality that begins with Alone (“this is the end of every song that we sing… we toast, with bitter dregs, to our emptiness”) and concludes with the stately, remorseless Endsong (“It’s all gone, it’s all gone, it’s all gone, left alone with nothing, at the end of every song”). The latter’s lead guitar part feels like an acidic paean to the foolishness of strutting and fretting even a minute upon the stage, much like Hendrix upended The Star-Spangled Banner into a rebuttal of the Vietnam war.

Both of these bookends benefit from the emphatic pummel of Jason Cooper’s drum kit, driving home the message of inexorability. These tracks were written in response to a spate of losses among Smith’s family and friends pre-pandemic, but encompass the sucker punch of 2020-21 too; birds fall from the sky, nodding to the climate crisis. The most direct track is I Can Never Say Goodbye, marking the passing of Richard, the music-savvy elder brother looked up to by the young Smith. And Nothing Is Forever – laden with piano and strings – deals with his deep regret at having made a promise to be with someone on their deathbed, one he could not keep. Another theme eats caustically away at many of these songs: the question of Smith’s own selfhood. It seems to be fracturing, even as every music fan has a pretty solid idea of who this monumental figure is.

The stage is set for Songs of a Lost World to be lugubrious and overwrought from end to end. Wisely, Smith opts to spike his pain with bitterness and paranoia too. Warsong musters the sour hum of organ to deal with an intractable conflict: two people locked in enmity for ever.

The record’s crowning glory, though, is its unexpected pop banger, Drone: Nodrone, a pacier, snarkier cut about self-doubt prompted by the arrival of a drone above Smith’s garden. In the lyrics, he is initially full of caustic bewilderment; his centre is not holding. But soon we’re back on message, into the record’s unified thematic groove, with Smith “staring down the barrel of the same warm gun”. The direction of travel is – yes – “down, down, down”. But here, Smith and the rest of the Cure are full of fight and electricity, with melodies to spare. Bring on the next two records.

'AND I CAN NEVER SAY GOODBYE '

The fifth and final piece from this artist created for @heartresearchuk's Anonymous heART Project.

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Win Troxy tickets

Cure Troxy Ticket Contest
UK only
Open until Oct. 28 at 17: 00

Enter for a chance to win a pair of tickets to see The Cure at Troxy on Nov. 1st.

https://thecure.lnk.to/TroxyTicketsComp

Thank you to The Cure for organizing this contest with us & other fan communities.

Good luck!

The Cure have also sent out a different Troxy contest link via Whatsapp. I'm told this contest is separate from the fan site contest. 
https://thecure.lnk.to/TroxyTicketsMailingListComp

Win a Lost World marble vinyl

From Norman Records:

WIN! - A Copy of The Cure’s 'Songs of a Lost World'

@thecure make a very welcome return next week with their first LP in years.

To celebrate, we're giving away a coloured/marble vinyl copy.

Simply like, share, and give our page a follow to be entered.

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/205703-the-cure-songs-of-a-lost-world

A winner will be announced next Friday. Current followers don’t have to re-follow.

If you win and you’ve already bought one we’ll either: refund you, give you a voucher, or allow you to pick a record of equivalent value.

New single from Vamberator

'Creature in my House', the 3rd single from Vamberator, the new band from Jem Tayle and Boris Williams, is out today.

And you can watch the video here.

Drone:NoDrone clip

Clip of Drone: NoDrone sent out via Whatsapp and on the Lost World site.
https://www.songsofalost.world

8/10 for Lost World from Line of Best Fit

From Line of Best Fit:

The Cure

"Songs Of A Lost World"

Release date: 01 November 2024

8/10

Written by Joshua Mills

The Cure’s 14th studio album is that rare unexpected return that doesn’t need to be graded on a curve.

For a band 45 years deep into a career they’ve worn remarkably well. First there’s the aesthetics of it all - the hairspray and eyeliner hides a multitude of sins, and Robert Smith’s unmistakable voice is somehow untouched by age. More importantly, though, it’s clear how much they care. Songs Of A Lost World’s lengthy incubation period seems to be the result of perfectionism and a surfeit of songs, with Smith telling NME that some of these tracks were first demoed over a decade ago, and that one if not two more records could shortly follow.

For only the second time in the band’s history, the entirety of this album is written by the frontman (who, despite his outsized status in rock mythology, seems to run a pretty democratic ship). Smith has spoken about personal losses that inspired Songs Of A Lost World in part. The anguished “I Can Never Say Goodbye” deals with the 2022 loss of his brother Richard, and in general this is as heavy and grief-stricken as the band have sounded since their late ‘80s imperial phase; you’re not getting a “Friday I’m In Love” here. In interviews, the singer has been in rather sparkling form, suggesting this has been something of a purge for him.

The Cure are no strangers to overstuffing, with 60+ minute LPs de rigueur for much of their career. Pleasingly, they’ve gone for depth rather than breadth. There are shades of Smith’s fellow bouffanted alt legend Kevin Shields in the audible hours of studio time that have gone into these mixes. Everything is layered, stacked, primped and plucked, somehow stopping short of sucking the life out of the music. This is particularly apparent on “All I Ever Am”, which lifts a synth string pad from My Bloody Valentine’s “Touched”, half-romance, half-horror.

That contrast, the push and pull of beauty and gloom, is key to Songs Of A Lost World’s best moments. As soon as the record starts, you call into the rolling melancholy of opener and lead single “Alone”. The guitars chime like the glory days of 4AD, it’s somehow both grandiose and personal. The keys are lush, the chirping piano highline dreamy. Every so often, though, we steer into stormy seas, the sudden stomach drop of a minor chord. Mortality on micro and macro levels punctures the shimmering soundscape, Smith singing of “the birds falling out of our skies / And the words falling out of our minds”.

With such a back catalogue, the sounds inevitably harken back to The Cure’s glory years. The opener could slot into the third side of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, while the driving bass on “A Fragile Thing” evokes their post-punk pomp. But far from retreading old ground, there are some real curios in the mix, most notably the near-industrial “Drone:Nodrone”. It’s perhaps the most hectic thing they’ve ever recorded, with guitars howling and wah-ing, gleefully goofy ‘80s synths, and clattering drums all piled atop one another. You don’t really imagine The Cure mucking about, but make no mistake: they were by anyone’s definition having a laugh making this track.

That’s for the best, because the final third is heavy. The aforementioned “I Can Never Say Goodbye” is the real tearjerker, a piano led ballad that finds Smith too bereft to rage against the unfairness of it all, or even to mask his emotions with metaphor. “Something wicked this way comes / To steal away my brother's life” he sings wearily on the chorus, laying it bare.

The true behemoth, though, is closer “Endsong”. A 10 minute epic, this is a mostly instrumental exercise in angst. Again mixing the rough and the smooth, they lay down a bed of gorgeous keys, then scratch away at it with an insistent, spiky guitar line, a three note pest of a riff played over and over again. It’s a truly well earned dramatic build; The Cure go for epic as often as not on this record, but they keep their powder dry for a properly huge finale.

Whenever a band with comparable vintage comes out with something new that’s decent, some folk will fall over themselves to say it’s their best work in umpteen years, but for illustrative purposes, this is The Cure’s finest work since Thatcher was in power. A few months back, the idea of this band dropping three releases in quick succession would sound a little like a threat, but if they’ve given the rest of the tracks in the vault the care they’ve given these, it’ll be enough to slap a smile on the most dedicated of goths.

Anonymous heART Project

A reminder that @heartresearchuk's Anonymous heART Project auction runs from Nov. 1 - 10th.

A certain artist we all know has contributed 5 pieces this year:

DRONE:NO DRONE

A FRAGILE THING 

WARSONG 

ALL I EVER AM 

5th not revealed yet

For more info - https://heartresearch.org.uk/anonymous-heart/

White label auction

The White Label Auction In Aid of The BRIT Trust

Upcoming auction from Omega Auctions. 

8 from The Cure, all signed by Robert Smith.

Pornography 

The Head on the Door 

Show

Wish

The Top

Japanese Whispers 

Paris

Greatest Hits

Thanks, JC

https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/search/?st=The%20cure&sto=0&au=163&sf=%5B%5D&w=False&pn=1

BBC 2 Cure schedule

Here's the schedule of Cure programs for BBC 2 on Nov. 2nd. Most of this is old (except for Radio 2 In Concert & the new Cure at BBC compilation) and all will be available on iPlayer, but if you're outside of the UK you'll need to use a VPN to watch.

Thanks to Andreas on Bluesky.

Another Lost World vinyl variant

From Assai:

Assai Obi Edition

Assai Records Exclusive Japanese Inspired Obi Strip*

Limited to 500 copies*

Marble Colour Vinyl

Hand-numbered*

 *Exclusive to Assai Records, limited to 1 copy per customer/address. No supply to resellers. Cancellation admin charge £5.00 to resellers.

Restricted to UK orders only.

Thanks, Andreas.

5 stars for Lost World from The Times

From The Times:

The Cure: Songs of a Lost World review — a decaying masterpiece

On the goth rockers’ first album in 16 years, Robert Smith tackles the death of loved ones and his own demise in music of expansive sophistication

Will Hodgkinson

★★★★★

The 16-year wait for this long-promised album is finally over, and for a lot of that time the Cure’s most ardent fans were wondering what the band could possibly be doing. Was Robert Smith hanging upside down in a belfry night after night for inspiration before carving each lyric out on a gravestone?

The Cure have become the last word in gothic splendour, an institution of doom-laden, cross-generational appeal. As well as garnering enduring respect for keeping ticket prices affordable and their spirit of independence, the Cure encapsulates a certain romantic adolescent mindset, equal parts passion and pain, forever occupying a shadowy corner of the churchyard of life, misunderstood but poetic.

As it turns out, Smith and co were busy making their Dark Side of the Moon: an atmospheric, sophisticated, thoroughly English portrait of death, disintegration and things falling apart, rich in melodrama and bombast. “I could die tonight of a broken heart,” Smith sings, in that strangely youthful voice of his, on A Fragile Thing, a statement typical of an album on which everything is raised to heights of importance.

“The stars grow dim with tears … we toast the bitter dregs to our emptiness,” he adds on Alone, like a madman about to be strangled by the ivy that engulfs his ancestral home creeping through the window and around his neck. “Promise you’ll be with me in the end,” he pleads on And Nothing Is Forever, holding hands with his beloved as they step off this mortal coil. Strings swoop, harmoniums creak, guitars reverberate. It’s a decaying masterpiece.

As the title suggests, Songs of a Lost World is an album about facing up to the fact that your time has passed, the world you love and understand has gone, the very nature of your life is embedded into the reality of death.

Given that he is the 65-year-old leader of an Eighties goth rock band in an age when pop dominates, you can see why this is on Smith’s mind. The paradox is how young he sounds, not just in the urgency of his delivery but also in the teen-spirit lyrics, in which suffering takes on heroic importance.

The precedent here is the Cure’s 1989 album Disintegration, which was equally informed with a horror of death and an encroaching irrelevance. Smith made that record when he was approaching the grand old age of 30. The difference this time is that he has experience of the subject he is writing about.

“Something wicked this way comes to steal away my brother’s life,” he sings on I Can Never Say Goodbye, against the sound of distant thunder. Smith’s elder brother Richard, who introduced him to alternative music, did indeed die in 2019, as did their mother and father.

That kind of straight-talking lyricism is typical of an album in which everything comes from experience. The eight songs here are long and involving, with bleak grandeur triumphing over anything resembling pop melody, but there is an emotional simplicity at the heart of each one that is entirely convincing.

The album finishes with Endsong; a ten-minute epic on which, after six minutes of pounding drums and mournful strings, Smith wonders what happened to the boy he once was, the world he belonged to and why he made the mistake of getting so old. As George Harrison once told us, all things must pass. On Songs of a Lost World Smith has not reached Harrison’s level of wisdom. He still wants to be the kid he once was, when everything was to play for. Who can’t relate to that? (Fiction)

BBC radio schedule

The schedule for The Cure on BBC radio (UK times listed):

Oct. 31st 

4-6pm (Radio 6) - Huw Stephens interview with Robert Smith 

6pm (Radio 6) - 6 Music session: The Cure live 

7pm (Radio 2) - The Cure in Concert

Nov. 1st

6 :30 am (Radio 2) - Highlights from The Cure in Concert 

Thanks, Peter.