It’s a novel attempt to promote an untitled album, your 13th, but a good one nevertheless. For the next four months we get a taster of where The Cure are headed, and whether that destination is actually worth visiting.
The problem with the first single, ‘The Only One’, is that it feels very much like The Cure by numbers. Gone are the dark, blood stained guitars of their previous album, this is much more like the late-80’s chart-tinged pop of ‘Love Cats’ et al. The lyrics aren’t exactly insightful either; “You’re the only one I’ll die for“, “With you it’s like a dream“. We’re not exactly stretching ourselves here, are we Robert?
It’s only on the B-Side, ‘NY Trip’ do things sound a bit more interesting. There’s acres of backward guitars, floating vocals and jangling percussion that sounds not unlike the 70’s film version of a bad trip. There’s a neat little piano that seems to bubble under this mesh of sounds, but once again it’s the lyrics that let it down. Lines like “You’re so beautiful it hurts / the most beautiful girl I ever…” well, they’re all a bit bland and faceless.
So, it’s a bit of a let down this. A nice idea but poorly executed. The problem will be, by the time the fourth single is released, will we be bothered?
50%
Links
The Cure [official site]
May 16th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
It just sounds like something that could have appeared on Wish - the “funky drummer” beat is so dated, the lips/hips/dips lyrics are awful - a real let-down. The Cure used to be capable of wonderful pop songs that sat so well with the sadness of much of their albums but it seems their best days are behind them, they have a massive back catalogue of incredible songs but I don’t hold much hope of them ever adding to it.