The Cure -- Songs Of A Lost World

^ "am I crazy in thinking it sounds like Slowdive" LOL

Hard to tell from that snippet, yeah drums are a bit weird sounding but at least it doesn’t seem to be laced with nasty little sequenced loops

sounds like reeves gabrels is doing some interesting textural stuff

this could be okay!!! still daring to dream

can i just say i like the 80s sophisti-pop band logo they're going for

Oooh this snippet sounds very promising.

https://i.redd.it/d9jb81psz0qd1.gif

Mary Anne Hobbs on 6 Music has some exclusive news to announce at 12 today.

Could it be the first play of The Cure - Alone, and even a quick chat with Robert Smith?

Just announced first play of alone will be on 6 Music on Mary Anne Hobbs Thursday show.

ALONE
OUT SEPT 26 | 12PM BST | 7AM EST | 9PM AEST
EXCLUSIVE FIRST PLAY WITH #MARYANNEHOBBS @BBC6Music pic.twitter.com/CZbqle5coE

— The Cure (@thecure) September 23, 2024

is she going to ask him what took so long

Sounds like we might get a tracklist too -- fire up your precovers ideas, I'll start that thread as soon as I have it.

production is bad enough to kill any enthusiasm i had, which is a shame because the song is otherwise good

the mix is so muddy except for those hideous drums crashing through it

album is only 8 tracks (despite robert saying in recent years that it would be 10 or 12 tracks), no titles yet except "alone" is the opener of course

it being that few tracks might be a more promising sign?

8 long songs is probably better than 12 long songs in avoiding being a slog

https://www.songsofalost.world/ they updated the website with a clip of "endsong" which also sounds muddy and hideously compressed

i'm not really enjoying their choice of titles

the drums on Alone are a relief tbh. There are.. certain other popular drum sounds that could have near sunk this for me.

Sounds great, drums and all

I was going to say, I don’t get the complaints, ufo. Sounds very lovely and rich, opening minutes made me think of later Cocteaus a bit.

Simon Price sez he’s heard it in full for a review for Record Collector and that it’s wonderful.

I mean it's very Disintegration but I'll accept that

ordered the cassette for a true hi-fidelity listening experience

it's very Disintegration

Just in time for fall!

Something in the mix does sounds off, a shame because I do like the actual song a lot, but in music that is so based around textures I think a bad mix stands out more.

this sounds like jesu, down to the mixing (which is good imo)

hearing pretty much no muddiness and this is a youtube upload. everything is crystalline... great fucking song too, wow

fuck is this gonna be the real bloodflowers

even the album cover is kinda good????

sorry to use an internet catchphrase about this but we're so fuckin gback

Blown away, wow.

Agree on the Jesu comparison. It's a good song.

yeah I don't get the muddiness complaints. it's no more muddy than disintegration. Mix is better than Underneath the Stars where everything was jacked up to 11.

Maybe the music has been mixed to play loud, so turn it up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx9SVAtMkJM

What happened to their guy David M. Allen? He produced the Top through Wish. I don't want to listen to the Top but dang all those other albums sound so good to me. New song doesn't sound bad from a production standpoint but it doesn't sound good to me either. Longing for Dave Al's epic atmospheric lushness on this.

Dunno sounds a bit like a slog. I miss the melodic side to their dirges but maybe it’s a grower

Not down with Reeves. I assume that’s him on Irritating Guitar.

Thought this was good. Have listened to lots of live versions already and it was nice to be able to properly hear the melodies & changes.

I listened to it on a decent system (albeit via a Spotify stream) and did feel it was lacking a certain widescreen quality - but perhaps nothing is ever going to sound as VAST as the first time listening to Plainsong as a teenager

But I still suspect there is a better and more spacious mix that would sound better - although it is 6am here and I was cautious with the volume, will Turn It Up! for play 2

Re Irritating Guitar - ! - was prepared to be pretty annoyed by Reeves here but assuming that is him then I think it works - just a slightly off element to stop it being too syrupy - kinda reminded me of the weirdo guitar parts in Disintegration (the song)

there is some kind of delayed/reverbed noodling just before the vocals come in, mixed way down - can’t even tell if guitar or keyboard - but I liked that too - already hearing more interesting musical choices than on the last couple of albums

"hideous drums", "irritating guitar" sounds promising!

The Hoffman lot have said Alone's Dynamic Range is a 6, so that could explain the lack of 'widescreen'

it's very compressed and most of the guitar and piano are buried in the mix behind the main synth strings - the opposite of disintegration where everything is crystal clear!

i always thought Disintegration sounded a bit murky/muddy - but in a good way! kind of like you are listening to it thru the sonic equivalent of the gloom and shadows in the cover art.

did most of my listening that LP on a walkman so who knows how that distorted my perceptions. have just ordered the cassette of the new album, maybe it will come alive on cheaply manufactured type 1 magnetic tape!

Don't hate me, but I'm underwhelmed. The lyrics are recycled from everything he's written. The intro is pointlessly long. The music has no structure or melody. And I agree with the drums and guitar being bad.
It's no "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep", "Plainsong", "Sinking", "A Thousand Hours", or "The Last Day Of Summer".
At least Robert sounds better than on the last two records.

Sounds lousy, I agree, and Jason Cooper sounds (a) worse than a drum machine, by some margin, and (b) like he's just barely remembered to hit each and every beat, his timing is just lousy and continuously off in a way that's almost impressive in its bloody-mindedness.
On the plus side Robert's vocal is pretty great and the lyrics are solid in a perpetual-adolescent way, even epic. I'll admit I got chills toward the end.
With a far better mix this might reach the grandeur it aspires to.

This song absolutely kills live

Bass guitar tone is glorious.

Jason Cooper

It's kind of a mystery, because when I (many of us) saw them last year, he sounded pretty good, and I've never liked his playing before. But for all we know this track was recorded 10 years ago.

they started recording in 2019 and finished the album in august

One note a day.