The Cure
Faith

THE REVIEW

And after describing the lunar eclipse of “Seventeen Seconds,” we transition into the solar eclipse of “Faith,” that is, the interposition of death (the moon) between life (the sun) and existence (the earth). The omnipresent and imaginary Mary (death), the struggle in which one believes, the hope that after death life continues, running through a gloomy dark forest, and the interminable 17 seconds, what did they reveal to Robert? Now Faith will try to reveal it to us.

Robert Smith, having reached the extreme of a delirious existentialism, where the word “Death” almost seems to induce a similar reflection as the only source of salvation for a better future, must strive to follow the right path. “Faith” is the journey beyond the grave to an infinite earthly paradise. This album is dark, dramatic, funeral, and the synthesizers become instruments of tragic pulmonary claustrophobia. Paradoxically, it has the exact same thematic perfection as Kubrick’s masterpiece film, “Shining,” with Robert Smith like Jack Nicholson, bearers of paranoid failed identifications, where space and time are linked between life and death chasing each other in a thorny labyrinth under a blanket of snow covering the desperate passage to find the exit to salvation. But you need to read the lyrics to understand what churned in Robert's troubled, fervent mind.

There is only a desire for self-destruction, the tastelessness of things, the crumpling of emotions, the disappointment of hidden truths, the unfulfilled sadness, everything is lost in the meanders of perpetual thought, the fear of confronting irreparable perdition, in reaching and uniting with Mary. One must desperately struggle through Dante's circles of hell, bow to purgatory, redeem in paradise, but how to find a calibrated and restorative way out that separates good from evil? Start dreaming! Mary exists, one must renounce sin to not fall into the pit, and sin must be killed, but this would become a homicide. Then the dream continues, but Mary has already been carried by the waves of Eden, and man, fragile, sits on the shore full of bitterness and desolation, she calls to him gently, the voice of the Angel of death echoes in his limbs and then he raises his gaze and realizes that there is a buoy in the middle of the sea where he can try to save himself, the buoy of hope, the waves represent his “God,” and so he kneels and begins to pray for himself, asking for forgiveness if he did not know how to love himself, asking for forgiveness to continue to love himself, atheist or believer, now he entrusts himself to his God, but it is not enough, the vision of the humid and icy tomb is obsessive, furrows his thoughts, but the voice calls him again and that last hope is the courage that revolves around this profound word called “Faith;” it is here that the mystery of the human being is contained, thus it will remain forever the greatest mystery of the psyche, no one can know what awaits us, the only way is to reach Mary in the divine destiny that God has marked for us without altering or accelerating time.

“The Holy Hour” Gallup’s bass and Robert’s guitar immortalize the anxious fragility of a complaining and chronic malaise with a finale of funeral bell tolls - “Primary” fast and sharp track, a race as if to free oneself from one’s emblematic sins - “Other Voices,” the bass gathers the temporary defeat and a scream exalts death as a call from another voice parallel to the being - “All Cats Are Gray” everything is so desolate and distant, strength to react is lacking, only another life will give life, Mary is a part of it - “The Funeral Party” drums and keyboards in a catacomb-like painful hypnotic dirge, in a pale celebration of an almost premeditated funeral - “Doubt” instruments and voice fight to the end, an unexpected awakening and the race through the labyrinth gives hope to find the exit - “The Drowning Man” the sweet voice of the (ambiguous) Angel calling again, and the buoy as the last hope, the embodied breath flowing into faith - “Faith” I personally consider the most sorrowful, overwhelming, and wonderful track I have ever heard in my life, a song of my darkest soul, indescribably belongs to me.

Faith triumphs over the fear of defeat, even if Mary left some traces in “Pornography”.