release date: Jun. 29, 2004
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5]
producer: Ross Robinson, Robert Smith
label: I Am - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 3. "Before Three" (3,5 / 5) - 4. "The End of the World" (4 / 5) (live)
12th studio album by The Cure - for the first time releasing on a new label, a small label licensed through Geffen Records. Again, it took the "usual" four years to release a new album. It's the band's first album in 25 years [!] not to be released on Fiction Records, and the band / Smith has found together with an American producer who has been known for his work with hard rock death rock and metal bands, which explains the much harder and heavier sound. Despite the improvement from the previous four releases and the effort to seek out new ways of expressing themselves, I don't think it's all that great. The international music scene has seen 'post-punk revival' bands from both the American as well as the European continent, and The Cure jumps that train with the excuse to have returned to their post-punk roots. I just find the band has only little to contribute with. The songs, the melodies, the originality, it's really not there except from on two or three songs, which doesn't make it a great album. Following the album release Roger O'Donnell and Perry Bamonte was fired from the band in 2005.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5, NME, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
