Songs of a Lost World is the fourteenth studio album by English rock band the Cure, released on 1 November 2024 via Fiction,[3]: 113 Lost Music, Universal,[4]Polydor, and Capitol Records.[5] It is the band's first release of new material in 16 years since the release of 4:13 Dream in 2008. All the songs on the album were composed solely by singer/guitarist Robert Smith, for the first time since the 1985 album The Head on the Door. It is also their first studio album to feature guitarist Reeves Gabrels. The record was released a day after Halloween at Smith's request.
Upon release, the album received critical acclaim, with particular praise for the lyrics, dark sound,[6] and Smith's vocals.[7] It was also a commercial success, being their first album since Wish (1992) to reach number one in the UK,[8] and was also one of the fastest selling albums of 2024, having at one point outsold the entire top 10 of the week combined.[9] It also reached number one in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland.
Background
Songs of a Lost World was several years in the making, and is the Cure's first studio album since 4:13 Dream in 2008. The album was originally intended for release in 2019.[5] It is the band's first full-length album to feature Reeves Gabrels on guitar since he joined as a full time member in 2012, although he was previously featured on the band's 1997 single "Wrong Number". It also features the studio return of keyboardist Roger O'Donnell, who rejoined the band in 2011 after a six-year hiatus.
Five of the album's songs, including "Alone",[10] had been performed live in 2022 and 2023 during their Shows of a Lost World worldwide tour.[3]: 108 Multi-instrumentalist Perry Bamonte rejoined the band in 2022 for that tour, but does not appear on the album because most of the recording was completed in 2019.[3]: 111
The songs were entirely written, composed, and arranged by Robert Smith.[3]: 107 During the writing process, Smith had difficulty "find[ing] the right imagery" for the lyrics to "Alone", ultimately finding inspiration from the Ernest Dowson poem "Dregs".[3]: 109 AllMusic described the song as "dense swirls of synths, simple, pounding drums", noting that "themes of loss, isolation, impermanence, and mortality" were present in the lyrics.[11]
"I Can Never Say Goodbye" was written after Smith's brother's death; he said he "didn't want the words to dominate the song, in a way that the music can become a backdrop to what you're singing. In this, I think the music is more important than what I'm singing in a way. It's a very difficult song to sing. People say 'cathartic' too much, but it was. It allowed me to deal with it, and I think it's helped me enormously." NME called the song a highlight on the album, saying it "lays waste with an emotional H-bomb".[12] Smith has said earlier versions of the song were "so overwrought", reportedly being told by people he would play them to they were "too much". He's also expressed difficulties with performing the song live saying, "sometimes it would really break me up and it was really difficult to not go over the top."[13]
"Endsong" was inspired by a starlit night that reminded Smith of when he watched Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 with his father in their backyard.[14]
In several interviews following the release, Robert Smith noted that the album was originally intended to be much more down-trodden, with his wife Mary Poole ultimately stating that "people won't listen to this", resulting in several track changes and revisions, such as the inclusion of "Warsong" and "Drone:Nodrone", both of which were not on the original running order. A final song, "Bodiam Sky", initially concluded the album following "Endsong". Although cut from the final release, its lyrics still appear printed halfway through the album's accompanying lyric booklet. This track, along with other omissions, are expected to be released on the "companion piece" to Songs of a Lost World, tentatively to be released in 2025.
Artwork
Smith chose Bagatelle, a 1975 sculpture by Slovenian artist Janez Pirnat, to illustrate the sleeve.[4] The album cover was then designed by Andy Vella.[15]
Promotion
The album's release was officially announced on 26 September 2024, with the release of the lead single, "Alone",[15] and a dedicated website.[10] The track listing was revealed by an email sent to mailing list members on 9 October 2024, and was subsequently posted on the Cure's official website.
The second single, "A Fragile Thing", was released on 9 October 2024.[16] On 14 October 2024, Smith said that a tour in support of Songs of a Lost World will begin in "autumn next year" after the completion of a projected follow-up album.[17]
The band performed a concert at BBC Radio Theatre on 31 October, one hour broadcast by BBC Radio 2 on the In Concert show including versions of "Alone", "A Fragile Thing" and "Endsong",[18] and another hour broadcast by BBC Radio 6 Music for Huw Stephens show, including versions of "I Can Never Say Goodbye", "And Nothing Is Forever" and "All I Ever Am".[19]
The album was launched worldwide with a concert that the band played at the Troxy in London on 1 November 2024. The show was streamed live on YouTube.[20]
Release
The record was made available after Halloween's evening at Smith's request – it was a demand he had specifically made at his record company's director.[20] The album was officially out at midnight.[20]
It was released on multiple formats. The vinyl was released through six different variants in the UK, all pressed on bioplastic on Polydor: black, marble stone, marble stone with obi, white, picture disc and picture disc 'glow in the dark'. Another vinyl edition was double half-speed mastered version. A further US bioplastic vinyl was released on Capitol records. There were also a cassette edition and a double cassette. A further "blood red moon" vinyl edition was released – a line taken from "Endsong" – featuring a red hue to the regular artwork and including the regular songs plus their instrumental counterparts.
In addition to the standard CD, a 2×CD+Blu-Ray deluxe edition featuring instrumental versions of all 8 songs was also released, along with a Blu-ray featuring Hi-Res stereo and Dolby Atmos mixes of the songs.
A further digital-only deluxe edition of the album was released on 5 November 2024, featuring live versions of five songs from the album performed at Shoreline Amphitheater in 2023.[21] This edition features unique faded/white artwork.[22]
The album went to number one on the UK Albums chart, with 51,362 sales the first week (19,838 CDs, 23,182 vinyl albums, 1,219 cassettes, 4,546 digital downloads and 2,577 sales-equivalent streams).[23] It also reached the number one position in France, selling 20,678 units the first week.[24]
The album also reached number four on the Billboard 200 on the week ending November 7, their highest position since 1992's Wish. Sales reached 57,000 equivalent album units, of which 53,000 were from album sales, their best sales week since their 2004 self-titled album.[25]
A 7″ vinyl release for the single "A Fragile Thing" was released on 11 November 2024, featuring two remixes of the song by Smith: "RS24 Mix" on side A and "RS24 Remix" on side B. On 29 November, a 3-track digital single was also released. This included a radio edit, the "RS24 Remix" version and a live version: "Live Troxy London MMXXIV".
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Songs of a Lost World received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 93 out of 100 from 23 critic scores.[27] Franck Vergeade of Les Inrockuptibles reported that "only two listens were authorized by the record company" to review the album: he qualified it "flamboyant gothic".[36] Andrew Trendell of NME gave the album a five-star review, stating "there's always enough heart in the darkness and opulence in the sound to hold you", and believed it was "arguably the most personal album of Smith's career. Mortality may loom, but there's colour in the black and flowers on the grave".[32]
Éamon de Paor of The Irish Times praised the album, giving it four stars and describing it as "majestically desolate, gorgeously grim", adding that it "moves like a glacier at midnight – magnificent, unstoppable and with a chill that settles in hard and heavy and does not leave". De Paor likened the sound of the album to bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, Pink Floyd, and New Order.[30]
Sam Walker-Smart of Clash gave a score of 9/10, and felt the album "is one of their most emotionally raw", citing "Endsong" as the highlight of the album.[28]John Robb of Louder Than War gave the album a score of 5/5, observing, "An album of elegiac, brooding masterpieces that deal with the heartbreak of loss with dark, masterful music dripping with melody, nuance and atmosphere."[6]
Victoria Segal of Mojo gave the album four out of five stars, praising Smith's vocals: "On a record so alert to the cataclysmic effects of mortality, it's remarkable how fundamentally unchanged Smith's voice is", while also noting the album lacked anything "approaching a pop song ... The 'Never Enough' grooves of the spectacular 'Drone' slide closest to a gear-change, but even there, the ground is unsteady."[7]The Times's Will Hodgkinson praised it in a five-star review saying: "On the goth rockers' first album in 16 years, Robert Smith tackles the death of loved ones and his own demise in music of expansive sophistication."[34]
Fred Thomas of AllMusic praised the album and felt the eight songs "often reach the same slow-moving grandeur of the Cure's high-water mark album, 1989's Disintegration, only without any of the playful pop".[11] Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, saying, "Robert Smith reaches into the depths of his cobwebbed heart; it's the best Cure album since Disintegration",[37] describing the album as a "vividly propulsive space-rock goth elegy, eight songs in fifty minutes, kicking with a full-blooded band attack".[38]
However, the German edition of Rolling Stone was less enthusiastic and criticized the album for "flat songs" that sounded "redundant" with endless introductions.[39]
Year-end lists
Select year-end rankings for Songs of a Lost World
^Watts, Peter (December 2024). "Songs of a Lost World". Uncut. No. 332. p. 113.
^Vergeade, Franck. "Gothique Flamboyant [ Songs of a Lost World album review". Les Inrockuptibles (Novembre 2024): 107. Après seulement deux écoutes autorisées par la maison de disques (After only two listens authorized by the record company...)
^"Czech Albums – Top 100". ČNS IFPI. Note: On the chart page, select 45.Týden 2024 on the field besides the words "CZ – ALBUMS – TOP 100" to retrieve the correct chart. Retrieved 12 November 2024.
