The Cure have shared their epic and emotional new single ‘Alone’, as well as confirming the release of their long-awaited new album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’.
- READ MORE: On the cover – Robert Smith on 40 years of The Cure
The post-punk legends have been teasing the follow-up to 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream‘ for some weeks now, starting by changing their online presence before sending fans postcards alluding to the album title and release date, putting up a poster at the Crawley pub where they played their first gig, beaming projections in cities around the world, and launching a secret website and WhatsApp channel that would later give fans a short taster of ‘Alone‘.
Now the song, one of the many new tracks previewed on the band’s 90-date, 33-country ‘Shows Of A Lost World’ tour, has been released.
With frontman Robert Smith having previously told NME that their first album in 16 years would be “merciless” and would “express the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years” – drawing more on the sounds of classic album ‘Pornography’ as “it hasn’t got any of those songs that lighten the mood at all” due to having lost his mother, father and brother in recent years, the track is a sprawling indie-noir moodpiece that sees the frontman sing of feeling “cold and afraid“, adding: “The ghosts of all that we’ve been, wwe toast with bitter dregs to our emptiness”.
Clocking in at nearly seven minutes long, ‘Alone’ breathes with a long sigh of the band’s ghostly textures before Smith begins to sing at around the halfway mark with the line they’ve long been teasing: “This is the end of every song that we sing“. Gliding on the band’s more cinematic and expansive side rather than their knack for a radio-ready pop smash, ‘Alone’ makes for a powerful return, and one of The Cure’s most devastating works to date.
“It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus,” said Smith. “I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be.
“As soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem Dregs by the English poet Ernest Dowson, and that was the moment when I knew the song – and the album – were real.”
The band have also confirmed that their 14th album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ will indeed be released on 1 November. The full tracklisting and more details will be revealed via their website and social media channels in the coming weeks, but the album is available to pre-order now here.
The album was written and arranged by Smith, produced and mixed by Smith and Paul Corkett (who previously helmed the band’s ‘Bloodflowers’ album) and recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales (Oasis, Coldplay, Manic Street Preachers, Queen). The album was performed by The Cure line-up of Simon Gallup, Roger O’Donnell, and Reeves Gabrels.
Smith created the sleeve concept with longtime Cure collaborator Andy Vella handling the album’s art and design – with the cover art featuring ‘Bagatelle’, a 1975 sculpture by Janez Pirnat.
‘Songs Of A Lost World’ will be released as a single LP, a Miles Showell Abbey Road half-speed master doble LP, marble-coloured single LP, double Cassette, CD, a deluxe CD package with a Blu-ray featuring an instrumental version of the record and a Dolby Atmos mix of the album, and digital formats.
In a four-star review of the band’s live show at London’s OVO Arena Wembley in 2022, NME noted Smith took the time to promise “that the new songs ‘won’t be new for much longer.’”
The review also described the new tracks, sharing: “The ticking clock piano rhythms and rolling bass of ‘A Fragile Thing’ accompany the promise that there’s “nothing you can do to change the end”, while ‘Endsong’ is a stunning, sprawling soundscape to portray Smith utterly lost in a universe where there’s “Nothing left of all I loved”.
“The truly devastating heart of the new material previewed comes with ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’ – where howling guitars match the singer’s fear of ‘shadows growing closer now” as “something wicked this way comes, to steal away my brother’s life’. You feel that these songs are for those who mean the world to him.”
Speaking to NME backstage at the BandLab NME Awards 2022, Smith took the time to exclusively confirm that The Cure’s next album would be titled ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, sharing: “It’s got artwork, it’s got a running order, it’s almost done! They’re so slow because of vinyl, but it might come in September. I’d rather it just came out. I can’t stand the anticipation.”
He also revealed more about its sister record and his anticipated solo album. “So I’ve been working on two Cure albums, and one of them is finished,” he added. “Unfortunately, it’s the second one that’s finished. [On the other] I’ve got to do four vocals, and there are 10 songs on each album. We’re mixing next month on April 1, so I’ve got three weeks left.”
Asked about the sound of the upcoming records, Smith revealed: “Well the first Cure album is relentless doom and gloom. It’s the doomiest thing that we’ve ever done. The second one is upbeat, and my [solo] one won’t be out until next year.”
Keyboardist Roger O’Donnell previously described the upcoming album as “the most intense, saddest, most dramatic and most emotional record we’ve ever made, and then we can just walk away from it… Listening to the demos, it is that record. I think everybody will be happy with it.”
Elsewhere, O’Donnell recently revealed that he was diagnosed with blood cancer last year. The band’s keyboardist shared the news earlier this month (September 1) on the first day of Blood Cancer Awareness Month.
He took to his official X/Twitter account to reveal that he was “diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma” back in September 2023 and has since since recovered.
Smith also appeared at the BandLab NME Awards in 2022, where he appeared with Chvrches to perform their collaboration ‘How Not To Drown’ along with a cover of ‘Just Like Heaven’, which you can watch above.
