Let’s face it: for most of 2024, for most of recent memory, rock music is dead,
But as the Day of the Dead approaches, the Cure has reinvigorated the genre.
The goth gods – who were left for dead by not releasing a new studio LP after 2008’s “4:13 Dream” – are back after 16 long years for Best Rock Album of 2024: “Songs of a Lost World.” are back with, which appropriately dropped the day after Halloween.
It’s Friday, and I love it Treatment Once again.
“Songs of a Lost World” is easily the Cure’s best album since 1992’s “Wish” – which included their hit “Friday I’m in Love” – but probably even since their 1989 masterpiece “Disintegration.”
That’s saying a lot for a band that didn’t owe us anything else – and that could have easily gotten the respect it deserved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Props to what he earned in 2019.
After all, like many famous rock bands of a certain era, they were still selling out arenas on the strength of their old-timey nostalgia.
On “Songs of a Lost World,” these alt-rock icons staged the most unexpected revival when they had nothing to lose.
The eight-track “Songs” is a revelation in an era where actual albums no longer exist. There are no obvious “singles” here – the way the Cure made the Top 40 “Like heaven,” “Lovesong” and “friday I’m in love.”
But this is an album that allows you to get lost in its otherworldly world for 49 minutes, without you having to skip straight to the next track.
This is an album that is meant to be – create that, demand it – to be experienced from beginning to end.
With its orchestral grandeur – these dense, painstakingly detailed arrangements can make you understand why it took 16 years – “Songs” plays out like a symphony in eight movements, taking you on a journey that’s full of symmetrical echoes. Starts and ends with.
“It’s the end of every song we sing,” Robert Smith – The Cure’s mascara-clad frontman – screams at the beginning. “alone,” The opener that sets the moody mood of the album with a catchy atmosphere that is reminiscent of “Disintegration”.
“Alone” is bookended by “Endsong”, which brings the album to a 360 finish: “Left alone with nothing/End of every song” before a final “Nothing”.
It’s a classic Cure closer that takes you to the final destination, which is everything.
Amidst captivating soundscapes – with cascading drums that put you into rhythmic trance with an emotional one – epic “End Song” There was not even a peep from Smith for more than six of his 10-plus minutes.
Like many of the songs on “Songs of a Lost Time,” it takes its bittersweet time to unfold, expand, and blossom into a majestic grandeur. If it wasn’t so absorbent it could be annoying.
As the title suggests, the album is a Gothic-rock reflection on loss: loss of loved ones, loss of youth, loss of idealism, loss of hope.
“I know, I know my world’s grown old,” sings Smith. ,And nothing is forever, Facing my death at the age of 65.
Her tortured, trembling scream has not diminished in its ability to convey weakness.
“I’ve been through enough/Staring down the barrel of that same hot gun,” a defeated Smith sings on the “Never Enough”-esque “Never Enough.” “Drone:Nodrone.” One of the more up-tempo tracks on this downbeat affair – no surprise there – it has a grunge edge with grinding, twisting guitars.
If anyone was “single” this would be it.
But “I can never say goodbye” – a haunting, heartbreaking ode to Smith’s late brother Richard – is the sad soul of “Songs for a Lost World”.
Smith sings, “This way comes something wicked/To steal my brother’s life.”
Those tragic strings pull out the torn pieces of any weary soul.
It’s a cathartic beauty and power that the Cure, against all odds, have rediscovered.
