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10.0
139341
10.0 |
The Guardian
The band are at an artistic peak on their first album in 16 years: movingly melancholic, with a punchy sound to match the lyrics’ emotional impact
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10.0
139342
10.0 |
NME
Robert Smith and co’s first full album in 16 years deals in darkness and death, but with flowers on the grave
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10.0
139437
10.0 |
The Skinny
Perennial gloomsters The Cure are back to their majestic, melancholy best on Songs of a Lost World, their first album in 16 years
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10.0
139449
10.0 |
XS Noize
The album’s intros are remarkable in their patience and tension, holding the listener’s attention until the total weight of each song arrives. This method, which The Cure perfected on Disintegration, feels even more refined here, enhancing the album’s cathartic power
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10.0
139455
10.0 |
The Independent
All these years later, rock’s foremost goth can still tap into teenage intensity on ‘Songs of a Lost World’
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10.0
139469
10.0 |
The Arts Desk
The motif of the elusive girl is still here, but he desperately asks her to “promise you’ll be with me in the end”
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10.0
139677
10.0 |
Record Collector
A work of genius that was worth the wait. Print edition only
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9.1
139530
9.1 |
A.V. Club
As usual with Smith at his saddest, you don’t leave his orbit feeling worse about the world. You feel comforted by the fact that someone shares this universal pain so deeply
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9.0
139509
9.0 |
Spectrum Culture
After nearly 50 years, the Cure have finally delivered an album filled with exactly what their detractors have always claimed; unremitting angst and misery. The punchline is that it’s great; indeed, “their best since Disintegration”
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9.0
139490
9.0 |
musicOMH
The first new album from Robert Smith and co in 16 years offers beautiful bleakness, the sort of sorrow that you just want to bathe in
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9.0
139498
9.0 |
Under The Radar
A momentous and welcome return from a band who’ve become national treasures over their nearly 50 years in existence. Whatever the future holds, this is up there with The Cure’s finest works to date. Long may that continue
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9.0
139499
9.0 |
God Is In The TV
Who knows if it’s their last album, or whether there’s more to come? Let us be thankful that it’s here and just as wonderful as we dared to hope it might be
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9.0
139456
9.0 |
All Music
It's a new chaper late-in-the-game so unexpectedly powerful that it's nothing short of stunning, and just as unexpectedly, it ranks among the band's best work
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9.0
139343
9.0 |
Clash
With a sense of finality running through the LP, it was fair to assume that this may indeed be the end of The Cure’s story. However, as fans know, Robert Smith’s future plans are ever-shifting and a recent interview has revealed
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9.0
139344
9.0 |
Uncut
While Songs Of A Lost World is not as angry as Pornography or as claustrophobic as Disintegration, it instead possesses an immersive, graceful beauty and more energy than you might expect. Print edition only
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8.8
139460
8.8 |
Beats Per Minute
Songs of a Lost World might just be a masterpiece. It takes more than three weeks of constant listening to a record to make such a clickbait-laden, headline grabbing claim hold up to genuine scrutiny, but it’s as close to perfection as any of us could have hoped for
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8.6
139501
8.6 |
Northern Transmissions
There is a finality to Smith’s thematic choice of words, but it is in the delivery that the urgency and desperation can really be felt as he wrestles with regret, grief, ageing, and humanity’s futile nature
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8.5
139495
8.5 |
The Quietus
Taken on its own terms it’s as urgent and compelling as ever
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8.3
139500
8.3 |
Paste Magazine
The West Sussex legends' first album of new material since 4:13 Dream maps out the hours, minutes, seconds of our 16 years apart, playing back the sound of surviving the death of a planet, hoping that Robert Smith’s voice is there with us as the ground goes cold
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8.0
139497
8.0 |
Slant Magazine
The album doesn’t feel overworked, and largely sounds like a band playing live in a room
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8.0
139489
8.0 |
The FT
‘Songs of a Lost World’ takes on ageing and death, but the band’s music stands unaffected by time
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8.0
139457
8.0 |
Far Out
Even amid the more melancholic strokes, Songs Of A Lost World has a vibrancy that echoes eras gone by, matching The Cure’s signature motifs without neglecting the album’s broader message
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8.0
139459
8.0 |
Spill Magazine
This isn’t an album to be consumed in bite-size, easily consumable pieces, after all. This is a banquet designed to be consumed in the entirety and majesty of one sitting
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8.0
139345
8.0 |
Mojo
With Songs Of A Lost World, The Cure, often seen as the soundtrack to an eternally doomy adolescence, might just be coming of age. Print edition only
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8.0
139347
8.0 |
The Irish Times
Majestically desolate, gorgeously grim
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8.0
139406
8.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
Whenever a band with comparable vintage comes out with something new that’s decent, some folk will fall over themselves to say it’s their best work in umpteen years, but for illustrative purposes, this is The Cure’s finest work since Thatcher was in power
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8.0
139413
8.0 |
The Observer
The band’s first album in 16 years finds Robert Smith and co on reliably melancholy form – with the exception of one out-and-out pop banger
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8.0
139418
8.0 |
Rolling Stone
On Songs of a Lost World Robert Smith reaches into the depths of his cobwebbed heart; it's the best Cure album since Disintegration
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7.9
139476
7.9 |
Pitchfork
Sixteen years after their last album, Robert Smith & co. return at their own glacial pace. Sounding regal, weary, and deliciously slow, they grapple with mortality and doubt as only they could
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