"4:13 Dream" by the Cure

I have all of these extra songs but over the years I think that last album has become my least favorite Cure album to be honest. I can't stand the vocals on it.

i have the japanese version of the cd also and I just hate the way the entire album SOUNDS. It's just harsh and annoying.

I do think the new one has potential but where I feel about it in six months time, not sure.... REM did a "best album since x" this year as well and while I liked it for about a month, I don't care to ever listen to it again; it just wasn't good "enough". This is the Cures "best since x" but do I still care? I hope so.

;_; ;_;

I really liked the harshness of the last album.

I just don't play this game, staying with a band way past their prime, hoping, trying to like each new album, half-convincing yourself you actually do like it, never listening to it again 2 months after release date. What a drag.

I wonder if that isn't just a function of overfamiliarity with any band, though? Not in every case, obv, but in terms of my listening habits I'm not surprised that I'm not living as much in newer albums than in older ones (if I really did live in said albums that heavily to start with -- not always what happened!). Then again these days my listening is much more broad than deep in terms of turnover.

aha yeah Ned OTM. This is prob worth its own thread but if Disintegration came out today I'm sure I'd find it great and all but not sure if I'd listen to it that much two months later. Kinda said but hey ho

I listen to The Cure more than any of their other albums, actually!

I had high hopes after the first single, which was glorious, one of their best ever.
However the consequent releases have seem them playing at the same kind of sludgy mediocre netherworld between pop and gloom that they've specialised in for too long. It's not a happy tour either, by some accounts.

Really? I felt the 1st single was by far the least interesting. Now that I think of it, each successive single sounded better IMO than the previous one.

I think the last one dips a little bit, but otherwise OTM, especially when you look at the B-sides.

ok, after another couple of spins I dare to say its very good - as good as some of their mid-80's lp's.
also, for the first time in a long time, it seems that Smith spent a little bit devising an actual sound for the album. the songs are all drenched in this glowing golden haze made out of endless reverbs, echoes and delays and there are even a couple of "weirder" songs, like This Here And Now.

wow exciting!! damn stupid record shop opening hours.. i'll need to wait til this w-e

obviously I could be completely wrong, considering that I spent part of my day listening to bad Jan Akkerman albums...

it does sound like the album the cure COULD have done instead of Disintegration, b/w Kiss Me and Wish.

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 tracks in and still loving it entirely!! EXCEPT for "Only One" which seems to me to be a terrible pastiche facsimile of their glory days gone bye.

"Sleep When I'm Dead" also strikes me as a slight weak spot, only slightly...not enough to interrupt the good flow of the album, though.

I wonder how fast the local Cure tribute band will learn these songs.

A nearly perfect album. I'm astonished, I am.

Does this mean I have a goth mid-life crisis on the way?

wow so so good. If any album deserved to be self titled this would be the one

Got "4:13 Dream" today and it is indeed surprisingly good! A wonderful return to form after the disappointing self-titled album, and IMO their best album since the unfairly underrated "Wild Mood Swings".

Annoying use of compression though, but that is 2008. :(

heir best album since the unfairly underrated "Wild Mood Swings".

okay that is the first thing I've read that has dampened my enthusiasm for this album

The second thing being the author of said critique

Pffff, for all the talk of "best album since Wish", this thing actually blows Wish out of the water

Dan is gonna go nuts when he hears the last two songs

okay that is the first thing I've read that has dampened my enthusiasm for this album

Well, stylistically it is in the same eclectic and pop oriented category. But so are "Wish" and "Kiss Me Kiss Me".

Amazing how this album comprehensively represents everything the Cure has ever done and still manages to sound like somthing that could have only been made in 2008 by the current line-up

"Ever since Friday I'm In Love there hasn't been a decent fucking rock song in the entire universe."

There is nothing as great as "Friday I'm In Love" or "Let's Go To Bed" here, but that would be putting hopes up too high anyway.

"Rock has descended into an amelodic maelstrom ever since the Who did You Better You Bet."

xxxp esp. noteworth, "The Scream" which starts like a Top album cut, then descends into a Pornography tribal maelstrom, before finishing as a new "Forever" incarnation.

okay baaderonixx is helping me ignore Geir ^_^

Heard it tonight -- very good indeed. The treatments on the vocals were what stood out the most. Smart move to end on "It's Over" aka "Baby Rag Dog Book."

I've played half of this album so far.

It's great!

The singles *work* better in the flow of this album rather than individually, I'm thinking.

Have you heard the 2nd half?

I agree with Ned, although I already loved the two last singles. SWID has surprisingly grown into one of my fave singles ever

Glad to know I'm not completely alone on this!

"Freakshow" remains my favorite of the singles -- just a wonderful arrangement.

Good album! I'm realy surprised. I'm guessing having Porl back did a world of good as they sound 20 years younger.

Ned, I think the arrangement on "Freakshow" is middlingly dull, "neither this nor that" in a sense. The Quietus put it nicely in their review:

There's another style of song on show here as well, the one about going mad at a party on drugs before he's met the gothic girl. This is called 'Freakshow' and would have benefitted from the crisp pop approach of 'Six Different Ways' or the straight up rock attack of 'Never Enough'.

That said, I'm one full listen into the album and it strikes me as less rock, more pop than the last one but about the same quality. I think about half the songs are good to great, while the other half sounds like b- or c-side material. I haven't been able to judge the production yet as I've only listened on earbuds, but I'm not holding my breath.

Also, the twinkly sound effects on "Underneath the Stars" sound insanely out of date, seeing as half the songs on Disintegration did it better 20 years ago.

Production/compression is the one weakness of this album i find (and I usually really don't give a damn about these things). The more hectic songs at the end can get a bit messy.

but god no comparison with the s/t I find. I mean "It's Over" (ie. the fat bombastic cousin of "Shiver & Shake") effortlessly trashes that last album's attempts to "rock".

Have you heard the 2nd half?

O_O

omg "The Scream"

btw why do the drums sound so HORRIBLE

I've had The Hungry Ghost stuck in my head for nearly a week now.
Live version is superior though

omg "The Scream"

Indeed.

Mind you, I'm wondering what Siouxsie thinks about a Cure album with songs called "The Scream" and "Switch."

Live versions of everything on this album are better because the drums are completely muffled.

Nah I'd say half of them work better on record, cf. This here now with you or The Real Snow White (ie I guess the weirder songs)

Haha soooo loving this

"Annoying use of compression though, but that is 2008. :("

agreed, it almost sinks the album. luckily the songs are strong enough to almost forgive it, but I can't listen to the entire thing straight through.

Haha soooo loving this

As soon as that bass line started...

srsly I cannot handle how much I am loving "The Scream", holy shit