‘Songs of a Lost World’ review: The first new Cure album in 16 years is worth the wait

Songs of a Lost World is the first album from the Cure since 2008, and that wait is as much the story of the record as the songs on it.

A lot has happened to The Cure since the Robert Smith-led goth rock icons last released an album. They’ve regularly toured and built up a reputation as one of the best live acts going, with their marathon shows often clocking in at the nearly three hour mark. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, solidifying their importance and influence. Band leader Robert Smith has also become an advocate for affordable ticket prices.

All the while, the band has been teasing a proper followup to 4:13 Dream that has gone through many iterations over the years. At last, that album, Songs of a Lost World, is here and it is worth the wait. The album is the band’s strongest since 1992’s Wish and will delight fans of the Cure’s darker material.

Robert Smith has always distanced himself and his band from the “goth rock” tag. After all, some of the band’s best loved songs like “In Between Days” and “Just Like Heaven” are bright pop songs. On Songs of a Lost World, however, the band envelops themselves in the atmospheric haze of goth right from the jump with “Alone”.

“Alone” starts with a nearly three and a half minute intro that hits all of the Cure’s instrumental trademarks: The knotted guitars of Smith and relative newcomer Reeves Gabrels, the hard-driving bassline of Simon Gallup and the ethereal synths of Roger O’Donnell. Once the lyrics finally show up, they are a classic mournful Cure line: “This is the end of every song that we sing.” Smith’s voice sounds like it has not aged since 4:13 Dream, but it also sounds similar to what it did on Wish over 30 years ago. “Alone” only sort of has a chorus, and it relies on its gothic propulsion throughout. It is perfect as both an opener to a Cure album and as the first single to introduce fans to the world of this one in particular.

“And Nothing is Forever”, the second track, begins with another Cure trademark in windswept strings from a Solina synthesizer. The song is a beautiful romantic song, ostensibly about Smith’s muse and wife Mary Poole. The most radio friendly song on the record is “A Fragile Thing”, which recalls “Maybe Someday”, the de-facto single from 2000’s similarly bleak Bloodflowers. It’s the only song here that has a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure but its comparative simpleness to the more complex tracks does not make it a lesser experience. The song is part of a lineage of Cure albums featuring a single that acts as a gateway to the sprawl and atmospherics of the full thing, like what “Fascination Street” did for Disintegration.

Another of the album’s more accessible songs is “All I Ever Am”, a propulsive bass driven track with a woozy synth part that fits Smith’s voice perfectly. “I Can Never Say Goodbye” a touching, and beautifully sad song about the death of Smith’s brother, which happened in the interim between albums. On “Drone:Nodrone”, the band is surrounded by trippy electronics that recall their dalliances with Madchester dance rock in the early 90s, but with a harder edge than what is present on a track like 1990’s “Never Enough”.

All through the album, you can hear the elements of the Cure’s sound that went on to influence dozens of later artists and genres. The crashing guitar noise that influenced shoegaze, the wistful lyrics that influenced emo and post-hardcore, the propulsive drumming that became integral to industrial rock. You can hear all of that on the ten minute epic “Warsong” that closest out the album and acts like a thesis statement of the last 45 years of the Cure.

There have been many times in the Cure’s history where Robert Smith has implied or outright stated that their latest album would be their last. That’s not the case with Songs of a Lost World, where he has claimed that there’s at least two more albums and the band would end in 2028. He said a new album would follow 4:13 Dream too, and fans waited over a decade and a half for them to actually release a record. If Songs of a Lost World winds up being the final Cure album, the beloved band will have gone out on a high with a better record than all three they put out in the 2000s.