It’s funny that only recently I was talking about dreams, because dreamlike is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Disintegration. It’s touted as this great return to the gothic gloom and doom of earlier Cure records, and it’s certainly more similar to those than the more poppy albums I talked about last time, but it’s quite a different experience to either. It’s more like a third direction, and the following records which sound very similar to me (especially Bloodflowers) further support this idea. Another thing I like so much about this band is that in most cases if asked what a specific album sounds like you can point to the art on the cover and say “well it kinda sounds like that”, and Disintegration is a perfect example of this. Sure the general goal seems to be to capture the feeling of the record visually with most album art, but in my opinion it’s not usually successful. It all makes sense even if everything seemingly doesn’t fit, just like in a dream. The colour palette as well is so perfectly suited, the deep blues and greens further draw you in to this spectral realm. Listening to this album is like taking a lonely evening walk through a haunted fairy tale forest, the navy blue shallow pools reflecting the gradually darkening sky above you, and the details on the leaves becoming harder and harder to see as night slowly falls. It’s just undeniable that Robert Smith (and yes it really is in this case mostly just Robert, this album was initially planned as a completely solo project) makes his best stuff while taking lots of drugs. In particular, psychedelics like LSD, which his return to regular use of in part inspired him to create Disintegration. I think this view of Disintegration as a concept album of sorts, telling the story of a pensive evening stroll through the woods just really adds something to the experience. There’s certainly a common theme, this anxiety over reaching the age of 30 and not having a real legacy to leave behind which is partly what makes this album while similarly gloomy like the early gothic trio feel more mature, and it gives this album more wide appeal than those also. After all this concern is a natural part of the human condition, think of the famous (and probably quite embellished) story of Julius Caesar weeping in front of a statue of Alexander the Great.
The album starts with a mostly instrumental intro, with only some echoing and reverberating vocals coming in towards the end. There’s a good ten seconds of dead silence to start with and then slowly a twinkling sound can be heard, at first so muted you might not hear it unless the volume is up fairly high (which it should be, the original copies came with a little note specifying that the record was meant to be played loudly), then after gradually getting closer to you it explodes. The effect is like fireworks in audio, it’s beautiful and you just want to focus on it and ignore whatever else is going on. There’s the occasional heavy drum being beaten in the distance somewhere, not like a consistent drumbeat throughout instead it’s quite sporadic. After a couple minutes the vocals come in, it always seemed to me like someone going over a past conversation in their head. With the “you said” being repeated over and over and there’s also the echo effect adding to that. Then the singing comes to a stop and the guitar (I think it’s a guitar) which had been there most of the track but not prominent becomes the focus as the song closes out. After that is Pictures Of You which I don’t like so much, maybe because I find it harder to relate to the things he sings about on here but then again I really like Lovesong which is much more explicitly a song about romantic relationships. Anyway it’s not really the lyrical content that is the issue here, in fact when listening to this album with my friends last spring this is the one that we were all singing along to. Maybe that’s it actually, this album is kind of meant to be listened to alone I think I even remember reading an interview where Robert himself said that, but this song is clearly better enjoyed in good company. So it’s a little out of place, although it still has a very similar sound to the rest of the album. The twinkling chimes, the specific kind of effect he gets with his guitar, etc. Third in the tracklist is Closedown, which is a kind of conflicted song in my opinion. The words are not very cheery at all, describing the state of being Robert was in while recording the album. Sleep deprived and back to regular drug and presumably alcohol use, it’s not too different from the environment which led to Pornography although this time more deliberate and controlled. Speaking of Pornography, the way the words are actually sung also reminds me of some of the songs on there quite a bit. The rest of the music though is quite uplifting, it sounds almost like something from The Lion King at first before the guitar comes in. Lovesong is exactly what the title suggests, if it wasn’t for that trademark undertone of melancholy which can completely change your interpretation of the lyrics it would feel totally out of place on the album. I’ve heard a couple of covers of it and they demonstrate this perfectly.
Other than Plainsong though up until this point the album is at it’s weakest, the last two thirds are the real experience. Last Dance is what starts off this run, and it’s so integral to my experiences with this album (especially the first time hearing it, which was the first time listening to a Cure album in full) that I was really surprised to find out that on the original releases it wasn’t even included and only later in CD copies was it put in. Another drawn out and minimalist intro starts this off, before the song really kicks into gear and you realise the huge scope. It sounds like it’s all around you, like you’ve floated up into the stars and there’s so much empty space between all the different parts. It’s very reminiscent of the last section of Pornography which starts with the song Cold and very cleverly this song includes a hidden line from that song whispered softly “your name like ice, into my heart”, which I never noticed myself while listening but read about online. Lullaby is next and is one of my favourite songs from the band and just one of my favourite songs generally speaking. I don’t think I really need to go into detail talking about the music, overanalysing might have a negative effect if anything. It’s just so… pleasant. I can’t really explain why, it just has this calming effect on me so I suppose it’s appropriately titled. The lyrics talk about this “spiderman” creature, a half man half spider which ate little children and was a regular feature in the bedtime stories of Robert’s uncle according to interviews. Fascination Street follows immediately after and completely changes things up, being much faster and energetic. The drums are much more prominent on this than the rest of the album, and these bell things like maybe cowbells are used as well I’m not sure exactly what they are but they work really well. It has a really triumphant feel to it, which carries on onto at least the intro of the next song Prayers For Rain.
Things slow down again here, and the lyrics are the most depressive and gloomy on the entire record “I suffocate I breathe in dirt and nowhere shines”, but the drumbeat throughout feels like a lifeline of sanity that will allow you to come out on top. The hopelessness of Pornography is not really present on this album, the next song The Same Deep Water As You is the only time it slightly approaches those depths of despair. I’m not really talking about the lyrics here either, a lot of people have read into and wrote their ideas about the lyrics on this and I’d only do a worse job so I won’t bother. The music itself though, the way it drags on for almost ten minutes and captures this feeling of total emptiness reminds me of Faith (the song and the whole album) a great deal. The “prayers” were answered as well it seems, as there’s this rainy/ stormy effect on this track so it sounds like you’re sitting in a small wooden cabin or under a thicket of tress with the drops hitting something above you. Then a smashing sound, like a window being broken and this upbeat drumbeat hits. The title track is actually surprisingly cheery, although after the last song most songs would seem to be. The guitar offsets this a little with a more melancholic melody, leading to that trademark undertone I mentioned earlier. It’s something they’d been doing since the Japanese Whispers era, but was perfected on this album. Honestly this album is where they perfected everything they’d been developing and doing, it is the first album with the famous Cure “sound” and everything after while enjoyable mostly feels derivative or when they do try to experiment it fails. It’s the band’s peak, and this song is the best representation of the album as a whole so it feels appropriate as the title track. It’s not the end though, Homesick and Untitled are what end off the record. Another two long drawn out songs that go for the gloomy vibe, but don’t quite do it as well as The Same Deep Water As You in my opinion. If it’s not obvious I love this album, I don’t really have any specific memories tied to it other than it being my first Cure album and getting my friends to listen to it in full also for the first time for both of them last spring. I have maybe listened to it half a hundred times and still keep going back.
Next came Wish, and as I just mentioned it does sound very much like Disintegration. It’s just missing the soul of that record though, Robert Smith managed to forge the legacy he was so concerned he wouldn’t manage to do with that record and it’s like since then he’s been trying to recreate that. The song Trust is a perfect example, it seems to have all the components of the classic gloomy Cure songs but just doesn’t stick the landing for whatever reason. I can’t really explain it, it’s just an intuitive thing. On Wish he seems to not want to fully commit to this anyway though, so there are also tracks that feel more inspired by the stuff from Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me which just makes the album feel tonally inconsistent. There are some tracks on here that are absolutely fantastic of course, both moody and cheery ones, but it feels more like a compilation of songs rather than a proper record with a distinct identity. The opener, Open (haha), has this great mechanical sound to it. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, Doing The Unstuck and the closing track End (haha) are the highlights here certainly. A whole album of stuff like these three would have been something special. It’s only really on these where the balance between Disintegration and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is actually handled well. The singles from this album I really do not like, other than Friday I’m In Love which is actually quite catchy. High and A Letter To Elise are the ones I really have a problem with, the sounds just all seem to be mushed together so you can’t really pick anything out, they don’t reward you paying closer attention. It’s like they were designed to be background noise while driving to work or walking around in the supermarket. Apart is another song which tries very hard to capture that Disintegration spirit, and does a much better job I will say. If it had been included on there it wouldn’t seem out of place I don’t think, as Trust would. It has the whispery vocals from some of the songs on there, and the eerie feeling to it that was all over Disintegration. In fact if this song and Pictures Of You swapped places it’d make more sense. To Wish Impossible Things is one I’m coming around to, the violin is really nice on it and an instrument quite rarely used by the band. In fact I’m warming up to the album more generally speaking, there’s definitely a few songs I doubt I’ll ever be able to enjoy but having to listen to it a few times for this entry and more closely too has given me more of an appreciation for it.
Wild Mood Swings which came after is certainly an attempt to go in a new direction, which is appreciated, but as I said from this point forward it’s mostly attempts to relive the glory days of Disintegration or failed experiments. This is one of the failed experiments, and not just in my view there seems to be a consensus that this is one of the worst Cure albums. A lot of people say it’s the absolute worst, and I think I might agree. It’s certainly fighting with Three Imaginary Boys for the bottom spot, I can’t decide for sure. It’s very similar to The Top in my opinion, both in the frenzied or even wacky vibe it goes for and the various influences from all over the world. The 13th sounds like there’s a mariachi band backing Robert, Gone! has these brass band style horns in the background, there’s an oriental sound at the very opening of the song Numb etc. However unlike that album which grew on me quite a bit after a few listens, a lot of the tracks on here still just sound abrasive and even grating. I had to go through it again for this of course, and I did kind of want to skip a couple. The second song Club America is one of the worst and a great example of what ruins this record, it has this awful electric guitar that’s way too loud and keeps schizophrenically switching to play a completely different tune. It’s so loud and at the forefront it makes it impossible to focus on anything else, in fact this is kind of a problem all over the album. Almost the complete opposite of Disintegration in a way, with that feeling of spaciousness it created, everything on here feels so close like you’re in a small room with the band playing live all crowded in and squeezed in there with you. All the different components that make up the music don’t get any room to breath, you can’t focus in on something in particular you really like on certain listens. Even on the tracks on here I quite enjoy, Want, This Is A Lie, Strange Attraction, Gone!, and Trap (notice the quick snappy song titles, which does kind of reflect the faster pace of this album) that problem still exists the different parts just seem to fit together more harmoniously so it isn’t a total mess. They’d still be better given some space I feel anyway, but then again I’m not a musician and I don’t know anything about how to make a good song I just know what I’ve liked and disliked. I guess it doesn’t really need to be said, but I rarely put this on and don’t have any real memories or emotional attachment to it. I’ll certainly listen to it again on occasion though.
Bloodflowers is the most similar to Disintegration, it’s basically a sequel. I’m not saying it doesn’t have it’s own identity at all, there are some elements specific to this album so it doesn’t just sound like a collection of songs that didn’t make the cut first time around, the acoustic guitar being so prominent throughout for example. Which is something I’ve heard and even agreed with at one point, but after getting to know it better I’ve grown to appreciate this album a lot more. Robert Smith has said in interviews that it along with Disintegration and Pornography are the three albums which best represent the band overall, or something like that, and he calls them his trilogy. I would personally say there are four essential Cure albums, Seventeen Seconds, Pornography, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Disintegration. Although I’ve read another interview where he says Seventeen Seconds is his favourite, I suppose in a four decade long career he’s gonna change his mind a bit, and of course whenever there’s a new record coming out you have to praise that. There is a feeling I get that the melancholy/ moodiness is played up a little here, which is fine because I like that kind of thing but it’s just done more maturely on Disintegration I have to say it. It’s not that it doesn’t feel genuine or that it’s coming from a real place, just that things are… well played up a little like I said. Anyway, onto the songs. The intro sets the mood pretty effectively, it’s nearly seven minutes long and that was after being shortened supposedly. The longer six and seven minute songs are something else borrowed from Disintegration, along with it’s overall sound and mood. Again though it’s something I enjoy, long drawn out songs that bring you into a different world. You have that acoustic guitar being strummed throughout like I mentioned earlier, and while I’ve never really payed close attention to the lyrics on this album you can pick up on the wistful vibe from snippets here and there. The second track on here is probably what prevented the album from clicking with me for so long, it’s this huge 11 minute epic that takes ages to build. It should be perfect for me, I’ve listened to Carnage Visors (mostly on nightwalks) a bunch of times, which is this half hour instrumental/ ambient thing which has only recently been so easily accessible to people since the re-release of Faith. For decades it was like a bootleg cassette tape you had to track down. So I really dig the longer stuff, but this song just really doesn’t work for me. The intro as well, but this track in particular just doesn’t resonate. I wish I could explain why, but I can’t it’s just how it is. So together what with the long length that’s almost 20 minutes. A really weak first part, and an obstacle that really did stop me from relistening to this album in full after the first time because I kept giving up during this song.
It was worth pushing through when I did though, because from here on out it’s much more enjoyable. Where The Birds Always Sing which is the highlight of the album absolutely and I’d already heard it plenty of times before hearing it in the context of the full album from the early days first discovering the band. If Disintegration was a twilight wander through the forest, Bloodflowers is a walk home during the sunset at the beginning of autumn. That’s the feel I get, maybe because that’s what I was doing when it finally “clicked”. In fact that’s definitely why, it’s been almost a year and that image is still firmly what comes to mind when I hear this record. There’s even a song on here called The End Of Summer, it all comes together quite nicely. It wasn’t a very eventful period for me, just before I got the job actually. I was pretty aimless, I still am but this was the peak, there wasn’t any kind of future in my mind. I was living in a haze staying indoors for often two weeks straight and I might’ve stayed inside without leaving the flat once for that entire five month period (between losing my voluntary job which I took after falling for the “experience” meme and finding my current job) if not for the fact that I had to go to the jobcentre to get my NEETbux every couple weeks. I’d wake up late, I’d struggle to get to sleep every night and then to force myself out of bed in the morning afternoon. I had more free time than ever to play vidya/ watch anime or films/ read all those books I’d been meaning to get around to and yet I ended up doing less of all of those and just scrolling through the catalog on one of my main boards for ten hours a day or wasting my time listening to idiots on youtube repeat the same stupid shit over and over. I’m not trying to whine or feel sorry for myself I understand that I choose to be the person I am, but it was fucking miserable back then. Probably the second lowest place I’ve been in, for an extended period of time that is. Maybe the first I could go into another time. I will take being a wageslave over that any day, even when I have a really busy month and it’s going really shit I have felt far more spiritually satisfied since starting work. So this album and it’s association with the changing of the seasons is symbolic, because it also brings me back to a time when I entered a “new season” of my life in a way.
After Bloodflowers the next release was the self titled The Cure, which is quite ironic because this album to me is the least Cure sounding album of all of them. It’s the least definitive one in their entire discography, and I know I said that Wild Mood Swings and Three Imaginary Boys are fighting for the worst spot but after relistening to this today it might have just snuck in and snatched the title. It’s not terrible, and there are some really good songs, but as a whole I really didn’t enjoy listening to it again. Which is weird, I remember about half a year or so ago I quite liked it and was listening to it quite a lot. I listened to it for the first time maybe a year ago or something, then kind of forgot and after going back to it I found it a nice change of pace from the other Cure albums. It was released in 2004 I believe, and very much seems to have been influenced by some trends in music at the time. Like a lot of the really accessible nu-metal bands, korn, limp bizkit, and was even co-produced by Ross Robinson who produced for those bands apparently. You can find this shit on Wikipedia if you care anyway, and the influence isn’t that strong you don’t have Robert doing harsh metal vocals and wearing those cringy Halloween masks when performing this stuff. It sounds like The Cure still, but you can feel the influence in subtle ways that are hard to explain for a pleb who doesn’t know shit about music. The tracks where the influence is most noticeable are actually my favourites on here though. Us Or Them has this great really heavy guitar which feels really present throughout and holds everything together, Robert’s yelping fits perfectly and even makes the edgy lyrics “Get your fucking world out of my head” … (gonna be a yikes from me) not sound completely cringe. Labyrinth sounds like a Nine Inch Nails song, which is a good thing because NIN is fucking rad. This grinding sound, like a motor or something is fantastic. Great angery music, it’s like if you took the bitterness from some of the pornography tracks but without the gloom and introspection there to tame it. The intro Lost as well I quite like, with the words “I can’t find myself” repeated over and over like a mantra getting more and more aggressive and the music spiking out at you alongside it. Everything else is forgettable or outright skippable, I hate to say it because I really don’t like skipping tracks when listening to an album but there it is. There’s another over ten minute “epic” right near the end, which again just doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t totally suck like Watching Me Fall, the long one from Bloodflowers, but it’s still not deserving of all that time being given to it. At least it’s at the end as I said so it doesn’t create this obstacle just for you to get started with the album. It’s still worth listening to in my opinion, every single Cure album is even if just once or twice, but it might have the most duds. I have no problem with angery Robert, and when he does it well it’s great.
Finally, 4:13 Dream, the last Cure album at least so far and almost a decade old now. Supposedly there’ll be another one, I hope there is. It’s not that this album is bad, it’s pretty good at least as good as Wish. It’s just for a band with such a fantastic career one last hurrah, another real masterpiece if Robert has it in him, would be great. This isn’t that, it’s not a masterpiece it’s kind of unremarkable honestly. Maybe they just don’t have the desire to make new music, in fact they clearly at least didn’t for the last ten years because of the long gap. They still perform, but I’m not and never have been interested in live music so it doesn’t matter to me. I actually completely agree with Varg, the studio release is the version of the music that is truest to the artist’s vision. Also music fans of all types are generally fucking trash, crowds of annoying faggots and concert thots singing along to the famous tracks would just make for a shitty evening. I’m not saying music is always a completely solitary experience, sometimes with the right people and the right choice of music the opposite is true, but I find most music is indeed best enjoyed alone. The first track on here Underneath The Stars is very Disintegration (I’m saying that a lot I know), it even has the twinkling chimes sprinkled in at one point. Most of the album is a lot more upbeat though, supposedly this was originally a double album like Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me but they scrapped most of the songs and this album collects the more cheery ones. Which becomes apparent on the second track The Only One, which has this bouncy guitar sound that I really like. The guitar playing is really nice on this record overall, it’s what saves the song Freakshow which would otherwise really not be my thing. Then you have a bunch of really unmemorable songs in the middle, which just drag on. Sirensong, The Real Snow White, Switch, The Perfect Boy and This. Here And Now. With You. You also have the song The Hungry Ghost in there somewhere though, with this really nice sound effect with the guitar. I had to look up a video of a live performance to figure out what it was they were doing. The guy, some bald dude don’t know his name, waggles that bar that’s on some electric guitars. I forget the name, my dad did tell me once because he knows how to play but I forget. The record finishes with It’s Over, which has this chaotic and really loud electric guitar drowning out the vocals so you can barely understand what he’s saying if you’re trying to pay attention. A mediocre end, to a mediocre record, hopefully not but very possibly at the end of a career that is anything but mediocre.
I’ve been thinking about why I consider The Cure to be my favourite band more seriously since I started this back in part 1. I remember reading this article a while ago, I’ll link it but archived because it’s the jew york times, although in the current year of 2k18 who still isn’t using adblock http://archive.is/poojo. Now the idea that the music we listen to in our youth, the age it gives as most important in the article being 13-16, isn’t groundbreaking news by any means but it’s nice that someone took the time to collect some real data on this. It’s worth reading, but I’m not really here to talk about the article just use that as a jumping off point. See most of the other bands who’ve made music that really emotionally resonates with me are all from that period of my life, 13-16 years old. Not that they were all formed or making music in that time necessarily, but rather they were just what I listened to regularly in that period. Kasabian (specifically their debut album and Velociraptor), Nirvana, The Smiths, Blue Oyster Cult, Summoning, The XX, and some others. The Cure are the only band that affect me just as much and aren’t associated with that time period. In fact they’re kind of associated with a really shitty period of time, listening to the music from the band was an escape in a way. Also the weird and changing mood and style of their music, from completely miserable and depressed to manic and energetic, really makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve spoken here before about how I can get mild mania sometimes and of course this feeling of mental desolation. I don’t think it’s that bad, like people who have actual mental illnesses, it’s not something that negatively impacts my life in any meaningful way. It is there though, and something I have to work with. Honestly though, I can’t really explain what it is about The Cure and their music that just so perfectly works for me. It’s something intuitive that I can’t explain, it’s almost something spiritual. Those other bands I just mentioned can take me back to a happier time, but The Cure and no one else so far can take me away from all the bullshit entirely. Not unlike a dream.
Ramblings of a neurotic mess 