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Rating: THE REVIEW
The producer's name - at least that - did not bode well. He, Ross Robinson, boasted a resume with experiences more (Slipknot, Korn) or less (At The Drive-In) controversial.
Robinson decides to take The Cure back in time, to 1979, the year of their debut "Three Imaginary Boys," the only work to be recorded entirely live in the studio. "The Cure" is an album about love, pain, misery, and the search for oneself.
"I can't find myself", Robert Smith recites in the opening of "Lost," and even without inventing anything new compared to what he's already written in fourteen albums and 5 decades of activity, we cannot ignore it. The voice still possesses that acid-lyrical tone, the rhythms always dark in their progress, even if married to a graceful pop vein. Faster songs are interspersed with sweet night ballads, like the love song "Before Three," and the single "The End Of The World," inevitably the most immediate song of the work, pop - always of excellent quality, of course - but still pop. And this means: light guitar riff, 3-4 verses, chorus and start over again. Nothing that makes me jump out of my chair.
But Robert Smith, he knows me. He knows each of us. For me, he writes "Going Nowhere," a painful and suffering litany close to the more intimate works of the likes of Nick Cave ("Where The Wild Roses Grow"), Costello ("I Want You"), Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah"), Neil Young ("Man Needs A Maid"). Here it is, the bullet ready to hit me, and Smith places it at the end. Maybe, for each of you (I cannot say), Smith has placed a different bullet. As far as I'm concerned, since 1979 Smith has learned to know me, has often disappointed me, but a bullet he has always lodged in my body.
There is nothing else to add: this is just an album that demands to be listened to for the honesty it is made of; a work that skillfully combines the old punk and angry explosions of "Us Or Them" with painful and lacerating poetry. As we were accustomed to, after all.
P.S.: this is the first time the review does not refer to a purchased album; it is actually from listening to a demo (in English - I don't know if the tracklist will be the same). Forgive any small, possible error.
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Summary by Bot
This review explores The Cure’s 2004 self-titled album produced by Ross Robinson, noting its blend of dark rhythms and pop melodies. Robert Smith’s voice and lyrics convey themes of love, pain, and self-discovery. While not groundbreaking, the album maintains the band’s signature honesty and emotional depth. The reviewer highlights the personal resonance of the songs and the skillful melding of punk influences with poetic melancholy.Tracklist Lyrics Videos
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley and led by singer-songwriter Robert Smith. Since the late 1970s they have moved between post-punk, gothic atmospheres and pop-oriented experiments, producing widely admired albums such as Disintegration and Pornography.89 Reviews
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By The Punisher1
The Cure are good at being the Cure, period. The outside world changes, but Smith & co. don’t care: they seem to say "this is who we are, take it or leave it."
An album that, while enjoyable, I don’t believe adds a single comma to what the Cure represented in the mid-’80s.
