The Cure
4:13 Dream

The Cure return with an album anticipated since May following a curious promotional operation, which saw the release of four singles, one for each month, and finally this 4:13 Dream. Robert Smith's band undoubtedly manages to arouse, album after album, great curiosity among fans and non-fans alike; perfectly normal for a group that has produced masterpieces like Pornography, Disintegration, and Wish. Let's start by saying that it is a good album, pleasant to listen to, compact and with some very classy tracks. Those who feared a flop like the self-titled album of 2004 will have to reconsider. It begins with a track that has a spectacular impact live, that Underneath the Stars so close to the atmospheres of Disintegration, particularly the wonderful Plainsong. This reaffirms the fact that the Cure love to shoot their big guns right from the start, as happened with Want, Out of This World, and Lost from previous albums. The long instrumental intro leads to the only dark track of the record, if it's right to define the Cure's atmospheres as dark. Decidedly pop but no less qualitative is the following sequence, which begins with the first single The Only One, which would not look out of place on The Head on the Door, passing through The Reasons Why, with a fine intro of guitars and bass that evolves into an enjoyable and finally non-trivial track. It continues with a handful of lively Cure-style pop tracks, among which Sirensong stands out, a fine ballad with lapsteel in the foreground, the distorted Switch, with the revived Porl Thompson and the great bassist Gallup in top form, and then the most Cure-like track of all, This Here and Now With You, with an arrangement original for our guys nonetheless. Notable are the three exiting tracks, the psychedelic Sleep When I'm Dead, the unsettling and oriental The Scream, and the explosive It's Over. Special mention goes to The Hungry Ghost, with great guitar work and an epic, dreamy melody, probably the best track on the album. An album that represents a pleasant surprise for those who, like myself, believed they were artistically finished. The departure of keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, moreover, did not bode well. On stage, however, they have never ceased to amaze, as demonstrated by the recent performance at the Coca Cola Festival on October 11 in Rome, where they performed the entire album preview, among the ovations of the longtime audience and the obscene appreciations of the emo population. Robert Smith confirmed the release of a second part of the album, due by mid-2009, which should contain songs closer to the group's dark soul.