Year: 2024
Label: Fiction/Polydor

This album certainly was the major surprise of 2024, at least for yours truly. Not only was I entirely unaware that British legends The Cure were working on a new album, but also entirely unprepared for what it was going to be like.

In a very real sense, Songs Of A Lost World is a throwback to the very best material and style of Robert Smith & Co. Think Pornography, think Bloodflowers. Think the slow, languid, dreamy, melancholic, almost psychedelic goth pop of those albums.

From the very onset of first song Alone, Songs Of A Lost World is thoroughly convincing. The warm, lush, soft sweeping synths, the dreamy repetitiveness, the soft, unintrusive guitars. This sounds like it could be an album from the 80’s. But there’s nothing retro about it, on the other hand: this album sounds entirely current for a 2024 album. The sound is truly timeless.

And then, when Robert Smith’s vocals kick in after three and a half minutes. Wow is just about the only thing one can say. His voice is in incredible shape, sounding just as bright and potent as ever in its perpetual fragility. Again, one cannot help but think that this could have been released right after Pornography and not have sounded one bit out of place.

Consisting as it does of tracks that evolve slowly and consist more of a dreamy atmosphere than melodies and hooks, there isn’t much point in singling out individual tracks as “hits”. Songs Of A Lost World is meant to be listened to in one sitting. And despite it being a rather lengthy album with a running time of 50 minutes, it is incredibly easy to do so.

Despite the above, let’s single out a couple of tracks. Apart from the already mentioned Alone, the slightly more uptempo Drone:Nodrone is a standout track, just because it represents a slight break in the pattern without contrasting too much with the rest of the album.

The absolute crowning jewel of this beautiful album is the final track Endsong. With its duration of over ten minutes, it’s the longest track on the album, starting with a long, achingly melancholic instrumental intro. Once Smith starts singing, the beautiful melancholy turns almost into a remorseful, haunted ode to youth gone by. The heartfelt, understated lyrics are full of a tangible pain, a hurt that is almost too much to bear. The rest of the album isn’t any more joyful or upbeat, but Endsong truly crystallizes the atmosphere of the whole album into one track. Luckily, the beautiful melancholia of the music itself keeps things from getting too heavy – were the music to match the depressive bleakness of the lyrics, Endsong would simply be too crushing to listen to.

In a sense, there’s always been two The Cures. One is responsible for such pop hits as Friday I’m In Love; infectiously catchy ditties somewhere between post punk, new wave and brit-pop. Then there’s the other The Cure, who’ve crafted dreamy, melancholic monuments of goth rock (or whatever you want to call it). In my mind at least, the two have always been slightly at odds. Which, on the other hand, has always been part of the allure of The Cure.

Endsong firmly represents the latter. It is absolutely not a light-hearted album of catchy, easy listening pop. No, this is an album with genuine gravitas, one which demands attention and focus. And rewards amply: even after copious amounts of listens, this album just keeps on giving, keeps on sounding better and better, keeps on impressing. Without a shadow of a doubt, The Cure released one of the strongest albums of 2024.

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