Robert Smith of The Cure about grief, death and new album Songs Of A Lost World

The Cure frontman Robert Smith says performing songs from the band’s recently released album, Songs Of A Lost World, has helped him cope with the grief of losing close family members in recent years.

In conversation with Huw Stephens from BBC Radio 6 Musiche said that singing live became “tremendously cathartic” in escaping the “doom and gloom” he felt.

“You just suddenly feel something. You feel connection,” he added. “And that’s why I still do it… that communal moment with a crowd. There’s something really, really great about it.”

The band also previously performed a live session play a Radio 2 In Concert set to a small audience at the BBC Radio Theater on Wednesday.

The London show included a performance of Alone – the group’s first new music in 16 years and the lead single from Songs Of A Lost World, which was released on Friday.

The highly anticipated record is the follow-up to 2008’s 4:13 Dream and has been in production since 2019, following the band’s 40th anniversary shows.

Smith expressed relief at completing the process, telling Stephens that completing lyrics he deems worthy has become more difficult over the years.

“It’s the one thing I’ve found much more difficult as I’ve gotten older: writing words that I want to sing. I can write words, but I don’t really feel like singing them.

“So to get to the point where I think it’s worth singing these songs, it’s become very, very difficult,” he said.

He revealed that his wife Mary, whom he met in high school, helped him finalize the album’s tracklist, insisting on balancing the depth of darkness.

“I was finishing the doom and somber songs… and (Mary) said no, no, no, your best albums are the ones with just a few… more upbeat songs. She was right.

“I wanted to finish everything because I thought that was only fair to all the songs, as if they were all little children. I don’t want to pick favorites.”

Originally formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1978, The Cure endure as gothic icons of alternative rock – with lyrics about love, fear and abandonment set against a kaleidoscope of melodies.

From their sparse rock early years – picking apart the remnants of Joy Division’s post-punk gloom and David Bowie’s Low era – they grew into late ’80s indie pop heavyweights – defined by melancholy from Smith.

This era spawned a number of UK top 10 singles, including Lullaby and Friday I’m In Love – one of the band’s best-known songs from their 1992 album, Wish.

Guitarist and main songwriter Smith remains the only permanent member of the band, closely followed by bassist Simon Gallup.

Reeves Gabrels and Perry Bamote are currently touring on guitar, with Jason Cooper on drums and Roger O’Donnell on keyboard.

But it is Smith’s stamp that dominates on Songs Of A Lost World – the band’s 14th album.

With songs written way back in 2010, the events of recent years have given it a personal touch, with Smith mourning the loss of family members, including his late brother Richard.

His death inspired the song I Can Never Say Goodbye – a window into grief-stricken frustration and regret.

When the song made its way to new songs on last year’s tour, Smith often struggled to finish it without becoming overwhelmed with emotion. He told Stephens that getting on stage and singing the song “night after night” ended up being a “beautiful moment.”

In an interview with Matt Everitt for the latest issue of Uncut magazine, since published on the band’s YouTube channel, Smith explained that these real touchstones came to define the record and set it apart from previous albums.

“When you’re younger, you romanticize death, even without knowing it. Then it happens to your immediate family and friends and suddenly it’s something else,” he said.

“It’s something I struggled with lyrically: how do I incorporate this into the songs? I feel like I’m a different person than when we last made an album. I wanted that to come through.”

This sense of vulnerability and awareness of mortality is pervasive as Smith, now 65, faces the passage of time with renewed urgency.

The darkness and atmosphere echo 1982’s Pornography and 1989’s critically acclaimed Disintegration. However, Songs Of A Lost World is much shorter in length, with just eight songs – almost half the running time of those albums.

Reviews from critics were positive, calling Songs Of A Lost World a return to form.

De Telegraaf awarded five starswith Neil McCormick describing it as “perversely uplifting in its nihilism and the best since their debut”. The Guardian’s four-star review praised the record’s introspective depth, especially how it grapples with “the question of Smith’s own self”.

“It seems to be breaking,” wrote Kitty Empire, despite fans’ supposed clear view of one of British rock’s iconic figures. She also highlighted the “unexpected pop banger”, Drone: Nodrone – one of Mary’s choices – as the album’s “crowning glory”.

These themes culminate in the album’s closer, Endsong, an eleven-minute epic that stood out as the highlight of the band’s Radio 2 In Concert performance on Wednesday – Saturday broadcast on BBC Radio 2, iPlayer and BBC Two.

Shaped around a pounding, slow drum beat, the guitars build into a fully formed crescendo of swirling tones and brutal bass hooks, similar to 1992’s Cut.

Lyrically, it sees Smith looking back on his own life, “thinking about the hopes and dreams I had”; wondering what happened to the “little boy”, and how he “got so old”.

On paper perhaps classic melancholy, but live it sounds brutally honest, unashamedly angry and resigned at the same time.

Elsewhere, the atmosphere on set was festive and alive: filled with fan favorites and greatest hits, from the languid heartbreak of Pictures of You to the poppier sounds of Inbetween Days and Just Like Heaven.

The band themselves also appeared cheerful and exchanged smiles, with Smith dancing around playfully during the encore, which included Close To Me and Lullaby.

Joy at seeing new material that sounds darker than ever in places should perhaps come as no surprise.

“I hate the idea of ​​having a set time for a career,” Smith told the NME in 1983 when he turned 25. “I think it’s terrible. I think it’s because I’m getting older and I’m feeling my age.”

Smith recently presented to The Times that the band may end up around their 50th anniversary in 2028, by which time he will be around 70.

Speaking to Stephens, he suggested with a wry laugh that he “won’t make it” to that milestone age and would instead be “really happy” to see Christmas.

But Smith told Uncut that the band is close to completing three albums after their intensely productive recording sessions in 2019.

He adds to Stephens that he is “almost there” with the second album. “Once I do that, I take a deep breath and then look up, but until I finish it, I don’t worry about what comes next.”

Time waits for no one, but Smith and The Cure are certainly not willing to stand still.

Radio 2 in concert:

• Only
• Photos of you
• A fragile thing
• High
• An evening like this
• Love song
• The walk
• Intermediate days
• Just like heaven
• From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea
• End song

Encore

• Lullaby
• Friday I’m in love
• Close to me
• Why can’t I be you?

BBC Radio 6 Music Session

• Plainsong
• Last dance
• I can never say goodbye
• Burn
• And nothing is forever
• At night
• A forest
• Everything I ever am
• Prayers for rain
• Disintegration