February 2025
Polydor / Fiction Records / Capitol Records 00602475036746
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Songs of a Lost World is the Cure’s first album of new songs in 16 years. The group has released a couple of live albums and a few random singles since the last studio album, 4:13 Dream (2008), and has toured off and on. Robert Smith, the Cure’s leader and the one consistent member over its nearly 50-year history, announced a new album several times in interviews since 2008, but it never materialized.
Songs of a Lost World is the result, then, of recording sessions begun and ended, and of promises Smith made to fans—and himself—that he repeatedly broke. It’s the first Cure album since The Head on the Door (1985) to list Smith as the sole composer, and the first to feature guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who joined the Cure in 2012 and has appeared onstage with the band since then.
Smith turned 65 last year, and Songs of a Lost World takes an unflinching look at mortality and loss. The album’s mood is firmly established in “Alone,” which starts the album on an elegiac note. The multitracked keyboard washes, emphatic snare-drum hits, and Gabrels’s sharply cut guitar lines of the song’s instrumental beginning set the scene for more than three minutes before Smith begins to sing:
This is the end of every song that we sing
The fire burned out to ash and the stars grown dim with tears
Cold and afraid, the ghosts of all that we’ve been
We toast with bitter dregs, to our emptiness
Smith based the lyrics of “Alone” on a 19th-century poem, “Dregs,” by Ernest Dowson. The second verse of the song solidifies the album’s theme:
And here is to love, to all the love
Falling out of our lives
Many of the tracks on the album begin with a keyboard line and add layers of other instruments as the tune gains momentum. They take time to unfold, and Smith steps back to allow them to settle in before he sings. “And Nothing Is Forever” mingles beauty and sadness, starting with a simple piano figure before a synthesizer string arrangement enters to fill things out. Gabrels’s guitar then adds some grit, and Jason Cooper’s drums help bring in more keys and Simon Gallup’s bass. “I know, I know / My world is getting old,” Smith sings in the chorus, but he ends on a slightly hopeful note:
But it really doesn’t matter
If you say we’ll be together
If you promise you’ll be with me in the end
Smith wrote “I Can Never Say Goodbye” in reaction to the death of his older brother, Richard. He worked through several drafts of the lyrics, and the result embodies the feelings of sadness over losing someone, and the inability to do anything about it (“And I can’t wake this dreamless sleep / However hard I try”). While the lyrics convey the relentlessness of grief in the moment, the song’s closing minute carries a feeling of calmness, as if sharing the experience gave Smith some relief.
“Endsong” brings the album to a close, and, at over ten minutes, it is the album’s longest track. Multitracked, layered keyboards create an intricate wall of sound that swirls around as Gabrels plays arpeggios that add a bright touch. Cooper and Gallup hold things together on drums and bass as the song’s long instrumental opening section intensifies. Gabrels’s guitar grows edgier and more assertive as the synthesizer strings rise in the mix. More than six minutes pass before Smith begins to sing, evoking memories of boyhood and then reflecting on how many things in our lives fade as we get older.
“All I Ever Am” and “A Fragile Thing” are the closest the album comes to what we think of as a Cure hit single, but the lyrics and densely packed sonics of both songs fit the atmosphere of Songs of a Lost World. The irony is that for all its sadness and dark tones, the album doesn’t drag you down. The lyrics express confusion, hurt—even anger—and Smith doesn’t resolve those feelings. But the music does. It is mournful but beautiful, somber but not resigned.
The musicianship on Songs of a Lost World is assured and often inspired. Gallup and Cooper don’t do anything fancy, but they provide firm grounding for each song that doesn’t lose its way, even in the album’s busiest sections. Smith and Roger O’Donnell skillfully use a battery of keyboards and effects to evoke different emotional states and shifting feelings. Bringing Gabrels into the group was a smart move. Anyone familiar with his recordings with David Bowie won’t be surprised at Gabrels’s intelligent use of tone and texture to flesh out these songs.
As is usual for a Cure recording, Songs of a Lost World is densely layered. I found that pulling the volume down a tiny bit on my system made for a more enjoyable listen. The CD is mixed loud and it’s crammed full. I occasionally wished for more definition—the piano on “Alone,” for example, fights to be heard, and I wanted to be able to hear Cooper’s kick drum better throughout the record. After repeated listens, however, it was clear to me that the sound on Songs of a Lost World was an aesthetic decision on the part of Smith and his coproducer, Paul Corkett. Not audiophile, perhaps, but undeniably effective.
The Cure’s albums since Wish (1992) have received lukewarm reviews, and it’s true that they were often a mixed bag. Songs of a Lost World is a welcome and unexpected return to form. Smith is struggling to come to terms with age, perhaps, but his vision and his voice are remarkably intact. He promises another album later this year from the sessions for Songs of a Lost World. Let’s see if that happens.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
