Here’s the big wrinkle in my personal journey as a Cure fan. I’ve spent several of the last posts talking about how I’d mostly ignored the legendary group until recently, barring a few attempts to familiarize myself with their more celebrated records.
Except that I’ve owned a CD copy of their self-titled record since the mid 2000s. At one point, I even owned the maxi CD single for “alt.end,” which includes the excellent B-side “Why Can’t I Be Me?”
As many people have pointed out, though, this album is maybe the least representative thing they’ve put out, sticking out like a raucous sore thumb in their decidedly less noisy catalog, which makes the decision to christen it with their own name curious. But buried beneath the aggressive performances and in-your-face production is a collection of songs that showcase everything that makes the Cure the Cure.
With this as my sole lens into the Cure for years (plus the “Just Like Heaven” 7″ that I bought for a dollar once), I felt for a long time like I didn’t really know anything about the band. But as I’ve given hours of my time to Smith & Co. recently, I’ve realized that this record isn’t nearly as poor a representation of the band as is often claimed.
Sure, the sonic palette is shifted a bit. Producer Ross Robinson, best known for his work with nu-metal bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit, as well as post-hardcore groups like At the Drive-In and Glassjaw, turns the drums up in the mix and has the group crank their amps up. Distortion is far more plentiful than ever before. Robert Smith gives his most relentless vocal performance ever. Tracks like the fundamentalist-Christian-bashing “Us or Them” find him practically screaming. On opener “Lost,” he’s positively unhinged, his voice and lyrics alike spinning into chaos as the band crescendos on a brutish, pounding rhythm. On “Never,” he bellows with a vigor to match rock gods like Robert Plant.
But despite the sonic assault, there are plenty of moments that are classic Cure. “Labyrinth” plays with Middle Eastern scales like darker Kiss Me tracks like “The Snakepit” or “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep.” “End of the World” is bouncy and charming like their best hits. “Anniversary” bubbles with an eerie atmosphere that they build better than anyone. “Taking Off” borrows much of its sonic palette from “Just Like Heaven” and captures much of its charm. “alt.end” alternates buoyant new-wavey verses with explosive choruses. “The Promise” spends its ten-minute runtime spiraling into sonic and emotional despair, like on tracks like “Disintegration”—or the epic Bloodflowers cuts “Watching Me Fall” and “39.” And as much as folks like to ignore Bloodflowers, many of the more boisterous tones used on the self-titled were first used there.
Tragically, the original CD pressing cut three songs from the intended tracklisting, including the Disintegration-y intended closer “Going Nowhere,” “Fake,” and the absolutely gorgeous “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty,” as well as the epic vinyl-only bonus track “This Morning.” I’m usually iffy on bonus tracks, but all four of these songs are fantastic.
At the time, it might have been tempting to see The Cure as an attempt by aging rockers to prove that they’re still relevant. After all, Robert Smith was forty-five when this record came out, long past the Disintegration-inducing crisis he had when he saw thirty on the horizon. But the Cure isn’t just trying to hop on trends here. Rather, it feels like a reaction to a musical landscape filled with bands they inspired—Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Nine Inch Nails, Blink 182, emo en masse—and showing that they still have what it takes.