I don’t need to hide how much I love The Cure and with that 2024 is a special year. Although the official hiatus between albums with new music was 16 years, for me, the last work that really connected me was with Robert Smith for Bloodflowers, 24 years ago. Both The Cure, from 2008, and 4:13 Dream, from 2008, have great songs – it’s impossible for the band to ‘go wrong’ – but, for me, they lacked the angst and density of other albums, exactly as Songs of a Lost World offers.

There are different opinions about what would be “the” best material from The Cure, but there is a popularity and consensus that often refers to Disintegration, from 1989 and certainly in the 35 years that separate the two albums makes an interesting connection. While in 1989 Smith was marrying his teenage sweetheart, Mary, and including one of the greatest love songs of the last decades, Lovesong, in Songs of a Lost World this love evolves into a sense of loss, of fear of imminent mortality. The algorithms agree because as soon as one ends, the other immediately starts playing.

The material has been worked on by Robert Smith over the years and, as he says, it was only when he surpassed the 40-year milestone of The Cure that he was able to internally stop focusing on the collection and return to enjoying creating. It was a winning strategy, even if it was not planned with this effect. With the privilege of so many ‘classic’ songs, in a year in which we had nothing ‘new’, the band circulated on tours that were as nostalgic as they were novel, crucially reaching new generations.

The word authenticity has never had such significant weight as in the last 16 years and The Cure has that in great volumes. They always have. I discovered them when I was 13, my nephew, now 30, has the same passion and reaction that I still have at 54. They could accuse Robert Smith of being “stuck in time” and I heard that a lot throughout my loyalty to the band, but here we are with him being idolized and loved by three generations in the same way in 45 years of being on the road.

Smith’s honesty in his lyrics, his sound, and even his curious appearance make him a rare artist, no one can be like him. He can create pop and light sounds, like Friday I’m In Love that are only apparently happy, like 10-minute songs like Endsong, from their last album. With long introductions and three-hour shows, revisiting hits without any refusal to embrace lightness as well as density, The Cure is truly the solution for those who want quality music.

Songs of a Lost World is a “short” album, less than 50 minutes long and with only nine songs, but stitched together and presented in a profound sequence that highlights losses and the forced maturation of the years. There is a somewhat “dirty” sound, more guitar, more beat, and the ethereal keyboard that are The Cure’s signature. The power of the opening of Alone with the poetic quote “This is the end/Of every song we sing” reminds us of the many times Smith sang about the need to be satisfied with what he was doing or it would be the end for him. Now he reassures us that he still has material for “two albums”, so it is not yet “the end”, but it is always on the horizon.

What becomes even clearer is how the singer opens his intimacy and heart here. He has mentioned in interviews that in these 16 years, the losses have been very impactful for him: he lost his parents, his older brother, and his uncles and aunts. Even though it is “the natural order”, the feeling that everything he has sung about mortality so far has gained another perspective, and it is true. For us, especially after a pandemic that isolated us and took so many loved ones, we have something in common with him.

At 65, Robert Smith has kept his voice intact and youthful, so browsing his collection is like stepping into a time machine, driven with sincerity and great affection. The world that he considers lost is even worse than the one he already identified as oppressive. The beautiful And Nothing Is Forever is a nice surprise for me (they already played half of the album in their shows, so I already knew some of the tracks), but All I Ever Am also stands out.

For the ‘young’, we know that reflecting on the end that is looming may sound strange and heavy, but for those who are grandchildren or children of those who survived two world wars, the fear of a third has always been very real. The Cure’s reflections speak a lot about this and ease the process. And certainly, they heal the soul. Songs Of A Lost World may be dark, it may help in maturing on a melancholic journey, but it is a paradoxically realistic positivity. In EndSong, which closes the album, Smith sings, “I’m out there in the dark… wondering how I got so old. Everything’s gone… nothing’s left… everything I loved.” It’s incredibly selfish of me, but his loss was our gain. The generosity of opening your heart to such beautiful material, it is the cure for our soul. A thousand stars and counting.

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