(Fiction)
The band’s first album in 16 years finds Robert Smith and co on reliably melancholy form – with the exception of one out-and-out pop banger

The Cure have long dwelled in a kind of rarefied artistic blue zone in which the years pile up but the end of the band is serenely defied – maybe due to a diet rich in red wine, combined with a dogged aversion to modernity. Band leader Robert Smith does not own a smartphone; the band’s consumption of polyphenols in the 1980s was legendary.

Having crested the Cure’s jubilant 40th anniversary in 2018, Smith swiftly announced a new album for release in 2019. Cure songs often tend to take a little while to warm up – the introduction to Alone, the opening track of Songs of a Lost World, clocks in at six minutes; three minutes elapse before Smith draws breath to sing. Likewise, a mere five years on from that announcement (including two years of generous, fan-pleasing gigs), the first new Cure album since 2008 has finally been deemed ready to drop.