4:13 Dream - The Cure

4:13 Dream

The Cure
Geffen Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

Given the bands I’ve adored growing up (from early Smashing Pumpkins to Mogwai), it’s insane to look back and recognize how many times I heard one of them site the Cure as their greatest inspiration, or Robert Smith as their idol, and then never followed through. Unless someone intervened, there’s a probable chance I would’ve drifted endlessly along the fringes of the Cure discography, touching only infrequently upon the ‘Friday I’m in Love’ or ‘Just Like Heaven’ singles. Mercifully I was found by two saviours; one who lent me the gorgeous Bloodflowers, another who got me hooked on their self-titled 2004 effort. After those two, I backtracked through their minimalist era (Seventeen Seconds, Faith), their commercial turn (Head On the Door, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me), as well as their universal masterpiece Disintegration. How strange, then, to admit that 4:13 Dream is the first Cure album I’ve had the good fortune of actually looking forward to. Still, after several line-up changes and deadlines pushed back, had The Cure finally reached creative exhaustion, where new explorations are abandoned in favour of yesteryear nostalgia?

The Crawley boys waste no time in effectively making me feel stupid about any fearful doubts with ‘Underneath the Stars’, a track better suited to Bloodflowers or Disintegration with its dramatic crests of guitar and Smith’s heavily reverbed vocals. After that opening track’s epic nature comes first single ‘The Only One’, and at once, Smith’s talk last year (or was it the year previous?) about this new material taking on the bipolar guise of Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is evident; between these two tracks alone we’re treated to the best of the Cure’s late 90s period, the emotionally damaged marathons and quick pop hooks. Although most of these tracks can be reference-points to earlier career-markers, 4:13 Dream’s independence is assured by confident songwriting - making this a stronger album than any of their 90s output – thanks to the simple tweaking of the re-energized formula tapped on their 2004’s The Cure. As that record was incendiary in its electric heaviness, 4:13 Dream’s similar approach deviates only in its pop ambitions. Smith has managed to recreate the euphoric feeling of his best love-songs on ‘The Perfect Boy’ and ‘The Only One’ while branching into less Cure-owned territory with ‘The Hungry Ghost’ – a send-up riff to late 90s alternative rock that becomes immeasurably Cure-ish by its lush chorus. And while a few songs here even rival the piercing onslaught of The Cure, the production softens their impact; guitars are less pronounced, pushed back into the mix. 4:13 Dream is certainly the better record of the two, but those hard-rock dynamics that made The Cure into such a late-period statement are suspended here.

For their stellar reputation as creators of mood-albums like Faith or Pornography, which fluctuate on a central temper, variety rules the Cure in 2008, permitting acoustic reflection (‘Siren Song’) and distorted screams (‘It’s Over’) with equal rights. And while Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is a classic album for pushing the band’s sonic boundaries as well as possibilities for the LP format in a digital age, it’s still comparable to 4:13 Dream as proof that variety creates internal conflict, where one side of a band’s sound can outweigh or outclass another side. While the conflicting sides of Kiss Me… made it a classic largely because of its imperfections, the material here is less impervious, finding their pop side far greater than the heavy-rock end. Although these opposing ends are well-integrated into a cohesive album, I can’t deny that the opening three songs (all pop songs) share accomplishments beyond, say, the last three songs (all hard-rock numbers) which tend to choose volume over songcraft.

With elements audible from a half dozen previous Cure albums, from the anthemic qualities of Head On the Door to the twisted hooks of Wish, 4:13 Dream is an accurate summary of The Cure’s maximal period (roughly 85 – present); occasionally spotty, commonly exciting and always curious. There’s an intangible emotion to The Cure, somewhere indefinable between lovelorn and suicidal, that Smith routinely defies then embraces, yet after thirty years and thirteen albums, it’s an emotion that not only outlives globe-trotting trends and once-loved music genres, but a sound as timeless and significant to culture as Elvis Presley or The Beatles. 4:13 Dream may not aspire to such lofty (and arguable) statements, but it’s the latest achievement in a sound that only The Cure can own and operate. Lucky for us, it’s a sound that’s as potent as ever.

Hypnagogic States EP - The Cure

Hypnagogic States EP

The Cure
Geffen Records.

SCQ Rating: 37%

I need a minute to get this right. So the Cure, having been broadening out to a more youthful audience since their 2004 self-titled effort and collecting the fans of every imitating, generation-skipping indie band, decide to drop a remix EP featuring eternal emo-undergrads My Chemical Romance, AFI, and Fallout Boy. Let’s forget for a moment that these boys share nothing in common with The Cure musically – make-up and misconstrued understanding of The Cure’s relevance to Goth notwithstanding – and for the sake of argument, let’s assume they somehow gained an extraordinary breadth of skill on soundboards and remixing. Is this still a good idea?

For those emo-remixers, absolutely, what do they have to lose? For the Cure, it won’t make much difference beyond providing an unnecessary black eye for their discography. My primary squabble is that Hypnagogic States EP is under the Cure name, which after twelve albums and a billion tours, is a brand I thought I could trust. Had they issued this as a Geffen Presents: Hypnagogic States, The Cure Remixed, like The London Philharmonic Orchestra plays Pink Floyd, I wouldn’t be bothered. Yet under the Cure name, much of this material is as offensive as if all the people in your life that drive you mad showed up to your house unannounced, walked right in, and toyed with all your most precious belongings. This feels violating, to say the least.

Strangely, the disc opens promisingly – so long as you’re familiar with the product – with 30 Seconds to Mars’ remix of ‘The Only One’, giving their ecstatic first-single a slightly sinister edge before some drum-machines and overdubbed vocals combine with Smith’s yelping for an excellent chorus. It’s an impressive remix, keeping the merits of the original while adding flourishes that compliment and morph its tone and tempo. Unfortunately it’s immediately followed by Jade Puget’s (AFI) regrettable stab at ‘Freakshow’, resulting in dance music you’ll only hear at the sleaziest, cheapest, underage club, in 1997. Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance fares slightly better with a new-wave synth-athon that is, in the least, a propulsive alternative vision of ‘Sleep When I’m Dead’ while Fallout Boy merely act as Robert Smith’s imaginary backing-band, adding brisk percussion and lame rhythm guitar to the verses of ‘The Perfect Boy’, which generously leaves the original largely intact.

There’s an ‘Exploding Head Syndrome’ remix of all four singles from 65 Days of Static, which shifts between interesting and syndrome-inducing, but overall Hypnagogic States EP does more to deter 4:13 Dream’s hype than the four CD-singles that built its momentum. Of course, Robert Smith and the Cure are classy and turn pure evil into something sweet by surrendering all artist royalties to the International Red Cross, making my criticisms, as a result, look pathetically low-class. Seriously though, wouldn’t this EP be way more credible and buyable had the Cure taken all the B-sides from their four independent singles and tied them into a package? Now that’s something the Cure name belongs on.

Faith - The Cure (Remastered Double Disc)

Faith

The Cure
Fiction Records.


SCQ Rating: 90%

Arriving late to the majesty that is The Cure discography, I was fortunate enough to discover their 1981 classic Faith twice. February 2006: I found myself ending each night burrowed deep in my basement room of a shared house, playing Faith from beginning to end while drifting in and out of sleep. Lights out and letting those hollow basslines feel around the room, I memorized that record like a blind man counting steps around his house; 'The Holy Hour' was an open invitation to fully connect with sorrow, 'Primary' and 'Doubt' were the two post-punk rebels I held in anticipation (or else they'd scare me half to death), 'Drowning Man' was my echo-drenched favourite, the title track my nursery rhyme of the highest merit. November 2006: Moved cities, changed jobs and found myself working a nightshift job. Each night I worked in repetitions, hands over the same objectives and mind cycling the same thoughts, but took solace in my humble MP3 player which, among many artists featured Faith in its entirety. Its dirge-style percussion, unforgettable basslines and Smith's tormented vocals had stolen me once again - this time assuring me that I'd found a personal favourite record - although I had a good idea why it needed that encore to fully sink in.

Even without the guidance of those two vivid, month-consuming memories, Faith is a nocturnal record... the kind people could hear once, cast off as boring, and feel completely at peace with their opinion. At first listen, these eight songs are as monochromatic as the artwork; barren and nihilistic by nature, similar in mood and content. For those who found peace and understanding beneath Smith's dark allusions, however, Faith is a bittersweet collection, nurtured together with a grace that The Cure have yet to top since. The back alley paranoia that occasionally unsettles 'Other Voices' builds upon a bass hook, tightening to a sinister groove, while 'Primary' reminds us of The Cure's roots as post-punk pioneers alongside Siouxshie and the Banshees and Joy Division. Best of all are 'All Cats are Grey' and 'The Funeral Party', the back-to-back centerpiece that finds the band exploring musical and studio space; delving into keyboard atmospherics and gothy dreampop. Such subtleties are best felt in the night, when you're alone and open to every nuance; both of my Faith discoveries (the first, enjoying it, the second, adoring it) were courtesy of Smith and Co.'s focus and vision. The fact that they were experimenting heavily with drugs at the time makes these results all the more baffling.

And now, with the release of Faith in remastered, double-disc form, I've owned it twice. A record this crisp, when remastered, runs miles around the analog-recorded original and unearthed a few keyboard shimmers and vocal loops I'd missed in the past. The real ticket here is 'Carnage Visors: The Soundtrack', a nearly half-hour instrumental that, placed lovingly at the end of Faith, completes the record in a way Smith had always intended. Compared to the brevity of the original record, 'Carnage Visors' is a bit of a marathon, but it's a suite that's undeniably tied to Faith in aesthetic and mood. Its companion disc, a collection of demos and outtakes from the Faith session, is less immediate but contains all the curios that fans will theorize over as well as the single 'Charlotte Sometimes' - a favourite that was only available on their first greatest hits compilation until now.

Saying that this isn't a record for everyone might qualify for understatement of the year - I know Cure fans who've never really taken to it - but for those in need of a personal, wintry comedown record, Faith is truly an original artifact of the slowcore and post-punk scenes colliding. One of the most elegant crashes I've heard.

The Cure - The Cure

The Cure

The Cure
Geffen Records.

SCQ Rating: 78%

In 1989, The Cure were at the summit of their popularity. Riding the wave from their most popular hit yet (‘Just Like Heaven’), Mr. Smith and the boys released Disintegration, a record that would later be considered their masterpiece, then set out on their most expansive tour ever. At the close of the decade, The Cure were what most people would call untouchable. Then the 90s happened and nobody talked about The Cure at all anymore.

Two disappointing records, a careless remix project and a live album later, 39 year old Robert Smith prepared to close the book on his band (again…) with the trilogy-closing Bloodflowers. Its release in the Spring of 2000 stirred lackluster press attention but those who listened in were hearing the sound of a band refocused (from the experimental failure which was Wild Mood Swings) and a visionary career entering its third renaissance.

The Cure, their self-titled twelfth album, is a document of this rebirth and presents us with the reinvigorated emotion of the five-strong band. Better yet, while all the hottest bands in 2004 were praising and exploiting the Cure’s guitar tones and 80s synth-work, The Cure is utterly devoid of that classic sound that pioneered them into stardom, instead preferring to write a darkly seductive rock record. They chose wisely, as opening gloom-alarm ‘Lost’ is impassably heavy, and even four years on, these trend-denying songs sound more timely than anything the Killers wrote. Although The Cure holds a predominant sense of doom, ‘Before Three’ and the unsuspecting ‘The End of the World’ are upbeat pop songs, replete with Smith’s romantic lyrics and searing vocals.

Despite my praising, this is not one of the Cure’s best albums; it’s a well-timed effort to coincide with their growing popularity among a younger generation, which is successful in appealing to a new audience without abandoning their principles. ‘Alt. End’, like many of the songs here, are typical alternative rock songs that are made notable through their performance. After all, let’s give credit where credit is due: this is the Cure, and we haven’t heard them this hungry since Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. There’s a confidence on display here that overshadows the few predictable songs here, and after a decade on top and another on the brink of quitting, that confidence is well-earned.