THE CURE THE CURE ALBUM GEFFEN RELEASE: JUNE 30, 2004 REVIEW: JULY 5, 2004

This album starts and ends so well it’s almost scary. Opening track “Lost” is the best Cure song I’ve heard in ages, frighteningly intense, and the ending “Going Nowhere” is not far behind it. Which only makes it a greater shame that what’s wedged in between them is such a routine-sounding, uninspired collection of songs.
“The Cure” sounds monochromatic, dull, completely lacking the mad swings between effervescent euphoria and tearstained melancholy that’s marked the band’s best albums. Calling the new material rehashed would be going too far, but it’s definitely standard, or rather substandard, fare. Nu metal producer Ross Robinson has thankfully not brought in any audible influences, but the production suffers from being slightly murky and dry, which further sinks the songs into the depths of blandness.
All this doesn’t mean that “The Cure” is a hopeless album. Single “The End of the World” is a nice little pop tune, “Labyrinth” is funereal enough to make an impression, and in general the album has its fair share of decent pop hooks, and for anyone who, like this writer, has been almost religiously obsessed with the band at some point or other, it’s difficult not to find pleasure in just hearing Robert Smith sing again. But that can’t detract from the fact that this is by far the least engaging Cure album ever.
The by some maligned “Wild Mood Swings” from 1996 may not have been a perfect album, but upon revisiting it now I’m struck by how much more it makes me feel than The Cure of 2004 are capable of. The new album could do with some splashes of colour, with more silliness, with more of everything. So while the album may not seriously lack anything in particular, it also doesn’t have much more than two great songs speaking for it.

KRISTOFFER NOHEDEN