The Cure’s reputation as spiky-haired misanthropes took a turn into left field last year when singer Robert Smith went where other artists feared to venture by confronting the Great Satan that is Ticketmaster and the “unduly high fees” it was charging for the band’s US tour.
Call it Oasis in reverse – or the rare sighting of a moral compass in a business where a sense of right and wrong is too often absent. That was a surprise from an artist who has rarely been so outspoken (unless it regards his bête noire, Morrissey). However, with Alone, their first single in 16 years, Smith and his band are back in more familiar territory. The track, which comes in advance of the November 1st release of new album, Songs Of A Lost World, is refreshingly, gloomily Cure-ish.
It starts – and then goes on for some time – with a cacophony of woozy, melodramatic guitars. This is The Cure of classic doom-fests Disintegration and Pornography – an altogether different proposition from the zany indie disco gadabouts of The Lovecats and Close to Me.
Considering the decade-and-half silence since their last record, it is clear that Smith likes to take his time – and so does Alone, which passes three minutes before Smith’s voice, still fragile and melancholic, comes swooping in. He arrives with lyrics as stereotypically Cure as black eyeliner and running mascara. “This is the end of every song we sing,” Smith croons. “The fire burned out to ash, the stars grown dim with tears.”
On and on it goes, locked in the same stately, funereal pace – less a rollicking return than a calm reset from a band that have spent their entire history orbiting themes of wistfulness and ennui and which, this far in, see no need to rip up the script.
Smith is 65 now, and, as with anyone who has reached that age, he’s been through a few things. He has lost his brother and his parents in a relatively short time span and has said that Songs Of A Lost World is shaped by those experiences.
