The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

[Thenop]

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World (2024)

Alone (6:48)
And Nothing Is Forever (6:53)
A Fragile Thing (4:43)
Warsong (4:17)
Drone:Nodrone (4:45)
I Can Never Say Goodbye (6:03)
All I Ever Am (5:21)
Endsong (10:23)

There must surely be an alternate universe, one where Robert Smith dances around churning out happy tunes, declaring he's in love on Fridays only and compares his girls to aspiring butterflies. There must be, but it isn't this one. Songs of a Lost World is a bleak affair, you can feel what the music sounds like when you look at the cover. It is a solitary feeling, drifting perhaps but hardened through time.
When his familiar howl strikes around the 3,5 minute mark and utters This is the End of Every Song we Ever Sing. And Hope and Dreams are Gone it is clear we are down to earth, this earth despite what the cover depicts.

The sound of the album is even bleak and quite outspoken. The synths never feel soothing, but like layers of tiny glass fragments embedded in asphalt so that when you walk you feel the sting with each step even though you know it is smooth.  More than once it feels like I am listening as if I am viewing life through the bottom of an old Coke bottle: weird, twisted, distorted but because of the haziness it somehow is just about vague enough to make it acceptable. It is the sound of a purposeful musician, knowing very well he is coming to an end of a career spanning over 45 years Admit it and you're done, fight it and you'll soon become not just irrelevant but made the laughingstock.

It is no upbeat affair either, a plodding river that erodes your aural pathways to suit itself for a dose of melancholy you know you need, especially after repeated listens.

Most of the overlong intro parts before the vocals kick in are built up meticulously to lead to the inevitable: a hopeless romantic proposal to be with him in the end, whenever that may be. He is a loner that doesn't want to be alone after all:

But all this time alone has left me hurt and sad and lost
Yeah, every time you kiss me, I could cry
Don't tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart
This loneliness has changed me, we have been too far apart

Ah yes, of course, there is the mundane task of being a musician besides Mr. Smith, well in all fairness his current line up holds some veterans but in reality they just do what they need to serve the song, the drums are quite apparent, often mimicking a tribal like pattern to emphasize the rhythmic machine the band really is. Much needed as well, it is the fabric that binds it all together, the wallpapered synths paint various shades of gray and only the guitar parts can add touches of colour here and there. The sparsely used vocals do not bring relief either, anyone that has ever heard him sing, knows Smiths vocals are what make the songs The Cure.

However we regret
All we will ever know
Is bitter ends
For we are born to war

But wait, is there a political angle here? Has Smith peeked past his gloom? Outside the wall? It is what you make it I suppose, all relationships are love and war after all.

Drone:Nodrone feels like a proper 80s outtake, perhaps they shared a practice pad with New Order? I could hear that, I would want to be a fly on the wall. So now I am, or that's what it feels like, also when Reeves Gabrels can finally unleash and underscore what seems to be a well textured song.

The deeply personal I Can never Say Goodbye (on his brother's death) is a heartfelt goodbye indeed:
Something wicked this way comes
From out the cruel and treacherous night
Something wicked this way comes
To steal away my brother's lifе
Something wicked this way comes
I can nеver say goodbye

When we finally arrive at the one half-upbeat track All I Ever Am the lyrics bring you down once more into a comforting fatalism where Smith speaks of Emptying Out His Mind and uttering Love Was Never Quite Enough.

If ever there was an appropriate song title it has to be Endsong, clocking in a 10 minutes, droning for 6 and a half minutes before the vocals finally kick in with the disparaging feel you would want to feel after hearing the album as a whole, it really is 49 minutes of fall weather, without the pretty coloured leaves.
We are nearly there when we go:
It's all gone, it's all gone, it's all gone
No hopes, no dreams, no world
No, I don't belong
I don't belong here anymore

Is there no hope left then? Well, no. None, whatsoever. This has to be The Endsong:
Left alone with nothing at the end of every song
Left alone with nothing at the end of every song
Left alone with nothing, nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing

Smith never meant to be happy anyway, he never searched for that alternate universe, he just wanted some sense of belonging at one point, and then decided he didn't fit in – again. The first one wasn't called Three Imaginary Boys for no reason. Nothing felt real, it never did.