I hope that you, dear reader, have felt love for something before, for the more intense among you, I’m sure you’ve felt hatred for something. Note that I said something, not someone. Your personal relationships are none of my business, your tastes and interests… are also none of my business. You can’t talk back to a written article after all, but I hope you have had experiences varied enough to feel intense emotions, of a positive or negative quality, about certain pieces of media, because what I want to talk about has landed somewhere in the middle for me.
Now you would think that it would make me indifferent to this record. But that wouldn’t be true either, there are some parts I love and some parts I just don’t care for in this record. But it introduced me to a new experience that makes me almost understand what hardcore music fans are going on about when they expound hyperbolically on the overarching themes and ideas of an entire album. So allow me to indulge in these impulses myself and spend the rest of this write-up to give this album a whole pass-through. Even if I know from experience that you will most likely forget about it.
I first came across this album in my Spotify recommendations a while back, to be more specific, on the eve of the announcement of the results of the 2024 US presidential election. Much has been made of the album’s fortuitous release in November of last year, given its dark themes of dealing with the end times, the band honestly couldn’t have timed it better if they tried. 2024 turned out to be the year of warfare: Old conflicts rose up like rotten wounds bursting open and we even got a couple of new ones to add to the count. Many political issues have breached into our everyday lives in an intrusive and detrimental manner.
And if I may spoil you on one aspect of this album before we dive in: the greatest lyrical achievement of this album is the seamless interweaving of personal and societal tragedy in a manner that is panoramic yet intimate. And while the band doesn’t tackle any issues head-on, they do deal with the personal consequences of living through such “interesting times”
Coming back to the story of my first listen though: I was getting tired of putting Espresso on loop for the umpteenth time, so I decided to check out this mysterious new album in an otherwise stale feed. I believed I had heard a Bond theme from them once which I liked, so I thought why not? Turned out that I was thinking of Duran Duran, so this was legitimately the first time I ever heard the music from The Cure.
One important thing to know about me is that I’m not an album listener; I barely have the patience for songs to finish, let alone sit through a whole bunch of them. So my usual MO is to check out the opener, then the singles, and then maybe, if I feel particularly adventurous, skip through some deep cuts to hopefully find some diamonds in the rough.
But from the opening bars of the first track, Alone, I knew I had stumbled onto something strange… And I was honestly… not loving it. All the hallmarks of an aging band are present: the tempo has been slowed, the key has been lowered a few octaves to match the reduced range of Robert Smith, lead vocalist and the only consistent member of the group, who has gone from a makeup-wearing emo heartthrob to a frazzled, grumpy old man (who still wears makeup). The band covers very little new ground stylistically and yet do not try to cover up the fact that they are not who they once were by calling back to past glory. None of the songs here feel like an imitation of their greatest hits, but appropriately feel like a continuation, if not evolution, of their sound.
Even beyond that, however, the mixing is haggard: Synths that overwhelmingly wash over you like a wave pool at an amusement park, Guitars and bass that are distorted to the point of being garbled, and drums that are oppressively booming yet hollow-feeling. All of these flaws, however, ironically end up lending themselves to the album’s overarching theme: Decay. Even if I am frustrated with the unrefined and frankly monotonous sound of the album. I struggle to think of any change that could objectively improve the album. The band have enviably managed to capitalise even on their blemishes and create an album that is imperfectly perfect.
Alone showcases all of these flaws with an uncomfortable honesty, sporting a long and somewhat repetitive two-minute instrumental intro that serves, more than anything else, as a litmus test for the listener. It’s a good representation of the album’s sound and you’ll know if you’ll want to listen to the rest of the album if you end up vibing with it.
That being said, I was indecisive on whether I even liked the song or not, and my thumb did hover over the skip button until Robert Smith’s anguished vocals finally arrived on the scene with the ironic opening line “This is the end of every song that we sing”. If the downtempo instrumental didn’t clue me in already, the lyrics and singing made me realise this album will be a depressing listen. Smith takes his sweet time to actually start singing on some songs, and he ends most songs very abruptly. It creates a uniquely awkward atmosphere, akin to an argument with your Dad, and one where he’s not angry, but disappointed.
Later research enlightened me to the fact that the Cure are a very depressed band who tend to use the time-honored pop tradition of coating their bitter lyrics in a glossy musical shell. However, they have always been more upfront about the nature of their work than others who use this trick. Using their prowess for hooks not to make their messages more palatable but more widespread. This album continues in that tradition, but something in the old formula has definitely broken down…
While the track list is a surprisingly lean 8 songs; every song ranges in length from more than four and a half minutes to nearly eleven minutes! In an era where songs are regularly going under three minutes in order to serve ever-decreasing attention spans. Needless to say, they are not concerned with creating hooks to serve as background fluff to a viral reel. That’s not to say that the album doesn’t have time to be catchy, or rock out like they are wont to do. It’s just not a priority anymore for a group who have proven themselves time and again, and are now making music exclusively for themselves, sixteen years after their last release!
Coming back to those lyrics, there are some very tasteful allusions to poetry and literature that hint to a certain distinguished sophistication in the verbiage that serves simultaneously as a compliment and a counterpoint to the drowning sadness they convey. What separates The Cure from the rest of the Gothic and Emo music scene is how understated they can be about their raw emotions, and the sense of maturity it brings as a result.
And Nothing is Forever is probably the most positive song on the album, with its soaring strings and gentle piano accompaniment. But it is positive in the sense that it is a song meant to comfort you in what sounds like your last moments. Essentially presenting itself as a final chance to make things right before it all ends. Which ultimately fails if we were to hear the bitter regret coursing through A Fragile Thing. The titular “thing” being the love once shared that has irrevocably been shattered.
A Fragile Thing also puts a slow end to the softer mood established early on and marks the beginning of a downfall shown in Warsong, which bears its moniker reluctantly and with a sense of inevitability that is particularly heart wrenching in the context of the current political maelstrom we seem to be trapped in; stuck at the brink of war. Drone:Nodrone serves as the actual call to action with Smith desperately singing about making things right despite everything, including even himself, saying otherwise. A song that serves as a great hymn for a final stand-off, one you know you’ll lose.
I can’t accurately describe the subtle sense of sinking dread I felt when the downbeat I Can Never Say Goodbye followed. It breaks the meagre optimism of And Nothing is Forever and is a crushing moment of defeat, stemming from a failure of character, Smith hurt by his inability to live up to his own ideals. As someone who struggles a lot with his self-worth, it struck a chord in my heart, albeit a very discordant one that hurts me to hear. The sombre refrain of “Something wicked this way comes” still haunts me, a parasitic earworm that fills my brain with dread. It made a lot of sense when I learned that the song was made as a reaction to the death of Smith’s older brother, because it perfectly represents the feeling of destabilization that grief always brings.
All I Ever Am continues this bleak streak with the additional context of the disabling force of old age. I’m sure most of us here reading a college publication wouldn’t be too familiar with the travails of aging. But Smith brings an odd familiarity to it which made me relate to it, mostly because I realised that angst is universal across generations. No matter the barriers we put up to separate ourselves from our older counterparts and vice versa.
Endsong has a simple title that’s part of a recurring naming scheme for the band, it’s also the last song on the album, and given the surrounding context, probably the last original song they will ever record. The band makes sure to give a definitive high note for their final outing, even if the mood is still dour. Endsong serves as a thesis for the album, both lyrically and musically. Every recurring theme shows up in this ten-minute monster to glorious effect. It’s an experience that will leave you drained but satisfied. I felt like a load had been lifted off me, even if only for a brief while, after I finished listening to the album. I couldn’t even be mad at the album for basically distracting me so bad that I got none of the studying done for the end-sem the next day that I set out to do.
So in the end, what do I want to say about this album? I think it finally made me understand why musical elitists think the way they do, if only a little bit. Because I struggle with giving a recommendation for any individual songs from this album: Drone:Nodrone is probably the catchiest but Endsong is the most epic, And Nothing is Forever might be more your speed if you prefer ballads.
But to be completely honest, none of the individual songs make a great impression on their own outside of the album. Listen to Disintegration and you’ll realise that this is far from the band’s best material, although it speaks to the fact of how good they were in their prime rather than any inadequacy in their current sound. And yet again, it makes sense that an album about old age and decay would also be affected by the same factors. Despite all that, if you can muster up the patience to bear with the whole album and its weirder choices. You’ll leave with an emotional rollercoaster in the form of a Shakespearean tragedy that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
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Article 19 