Review of the Week: The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

 

Calliope Music Review of the Week

The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

Finding Beauty in a Lost and Confused Affection

 

   After 16 long years, Robert Smith and The Cure return to the tenebrous melancholy of glittering Goth Rock in album form. Through sweeping strings, twinkling chimes, and dazzling keys the band emits a familiar spirit of broken-hearted enchantment. Frizzled electric guitar and oscillating synth annex haunting environments, driven by bold 6-string basslines and snappy drum patterns.

The record makes its impact through a masterful marriage of atmosphere and lyric. A gazing guitar gushes a black tone, leaving reverberating shadows for Smith's melodrama to twist and tangle in. As passionate and heart-wrenching as he has ever been, the 65-year-old singer chants of an overwhelming gloom, saturated in the fragility of love and the loss of his brother. The 49-minute album peaks when grounded bass grooves and gloaming environments are lifted amidst the undying luster of Smith and his lugubrious circumstance.

Songs of a Lost World is positively woeful in its tone, but negatively so in its mixing and mastering. A wishy-washy mix makes a heavy impression, degrading much of the punch the record would otherwise see in its bass and guitar sections. During the most involved moments where instruments interlace, the mix thins out vocals and sorely takes from the album's braiding complexion.

In the end, The Cure's long-awaited return is far from flawless but graciously welcomed and cherished along with their classic tunes of the 80s. Eternally submerged in the shade of despair, the band nevertheless finds beauty in the twilight of a lost and confused affection for life.

Best Tracks: Alone -- A Fragile Thing -- Warsong -- I Can Never Say Goodbye

8/10

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