Berlin. The fans have been waiting for new music from The Cure since 2008. „Songs of a Lost World“ is reminiscent of the milestone album „Disintegration“.
The pub „The Railway“ in the southern English town of Crawley in Sussex rarely gets as much attention as it did in mid-September this year. A framed poster hung on the exterior wall of the pub, with tiny letters in white on black reading „Songs of a Lost World“, along with a date in Roman numerals: „I-XI-MMXXIV“. Music fans with knowledge of ancient languages (or even just „Asterix“ expertise) quickly pieced together the information: The new studio album by The Cure is set to be released on November 1, 16 years and one month after „4:13 Dream“. Although announced as a „work in progress“ several years ago, the fan base lacked belief that it would ever be completed and released.
The decision to reveal the news in a provincial town in the flight path of London-Gatwick Airport was no coincidence. The Cure had their very first concert under this name in that pub in Crawley, back in the spring of 1978 when Helmut Schmidt was still Chancellor of Germany. Robert Smith, a football fan, singer, guitarist, and lyricist of almost all Cure songs, was 19 years old at the time, and he is now 65. He has spent more than two-thirds of his life with the band. He has threatened in interviews that he will retire at 70.
While Smith’s favorite team, Queens Park Rangers, has had an odyssey between the top three English divisions in the last 45 years, The Cure has always been on top. The first single released at the end of 1978 contained two classics that were part of the live repertoire for decades, „Killing an Arab“ (Albert Camus‘ „The Stranger“ condensed into two and a half minutes) and „10.15 Saturday Night“.
The Cure, who started as a trio (guitar/bass/drums), now have a lineup of six musicians, including exceptional guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who was part of David Bowie’s tour band in the 1990s. In this lineup, they were last in Germany in October/November 2022, playing several songs that are now on the new album.
The new album, „Songs of a Lost World“, opens with the song „Alone“, a nearly seven-minute long, extremely intricate song that exudes a sense of melancholy and loss. The album carries a sense of late autumn, farewell, and loss throughout.
The first line of the album, „This is the end of all the songs we sing“, sets the tone for the rest of the album, with a poignant repetition of „Left alone with nothing“. In one song, „I Can Never Say Goodbye“, Robert Smith mourns his late older brother Richard. The album also features more intense tracks like „Warsong“ and „Drone/Nodrone“, reminiscent of the band’s early days without a keyboardist.
The release concert for the new album will take place at the Troxy, a former Art Deco cinema in London, on November 1, 2024. The tickets for the event have already been sold out.
Robert Smith, who has spent 46 of his 65 years with The Cure, has remained a down-to-earth figure. He emphasized the reasonable ticket prices for the concert, taking a subtle jab at the exorbitant pricing trends in the music industry.
