Album of the Week: The Cure

He’s in a place to write lyrics such as “my weary dance with age and resignation moves me slow towards a dark and empty stage.“ Appropriately, there is a grand theatricality to Songs Of The Lost World, which only came together after a slew of discarded recordings. “Broken voiced lament to call his home/ This is the end of every song we sing, alone“ he sings on “Alone“—a lush, spacey and slow-moving number that brings to mind alternate-universe Pink Floyd and ‘80s New Romantics. Smith has connected the song to the poem “Dregs“ by Ernest Dowson, about the inevitability of death. “Warsong“—with its dirgy accordion intro, Irish-sounding strings and searing guitar like a slow scream—references “poison in our blood ... pain, broken dreams.“

But this is not just goth poetry. Smith is living it. “Something wicked this way comes, to steal away my brother’s life,“ he sings on “I Can Never Say Goodbye,“ a heartbreaker literally about the death of his brother. But there are unexpected elements here. The rainy-day piano is locked to a loose and easy groove, creating a slow-jam ambience. Crackling drums recall adult-contemporary radio of the ‘80s—yes, a good thing—on “All I Ever Am.“ Led by a nostalgically bittersweet melody, Smith dips in and out, content to be a co-star rather than taking the spotlight. In fact, he is less vocally present than you might expect, sometimes taking more than six minutes before singing. The band, including Smith on guitar, more than makes up for it. “A Fragile Thing“ delves into goth jazz with Jason Cooper’s cymbal flourishes like haunted wind chimes and a moody low end.

“Drone Nodrone“ has a lot going on: chunky, almost industrial guitar, a doom-funk bass line from the wonderful Simon Gallup and serrated synth pops. Ballad “And Nothing Is Forever“ is all rounded edges courtesy of mournful piano and glistening strings until spiky guitar punches through the ether and gated snare crashes like waves on the rocks. “Promise you’ll be with me in the end,“ Smith sings—a pretty classic Cure vocal melody. The singer has reportedly already been brought to tears while performing “Endsong,“ the moody march that closes the record. As a listener, you have to submit to the brooding groove, which stubbornly refuses to change to a pop music pace.

The music swells with snatches of impassioned guitar as a shaker acts like a metronome. Delivering despairing lyrics like “I’m outside in the dark, wondering how I got so old / It’s all gone, nothing left of all I loved,“ Smith is largely restrained, but the guitar wail invokes his pain. “It’s all gone,“ he laments at the end. Keyboardist Roger O’Donnell has said he wanted this to be “the most intense, saddest, most dramatic and most emotional record we’ve ever made ...“ Mission beautifully accomplished.