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Cure's Pared-Down CD Short Of Expectations

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By CURTIS ROSS

cross@tampatrib.com

Published: November 6, 2008

The new Cure album is here, finally, after originally being slated as a double-disc, not to mention causing the band to postpone a tour. That it arrives as a 13-track single CD suggests Robert Smith and Co. reined in their ambitions in order to produce a concise album that can stand with The Cure's best.

Right?

Not quite. If all the songs were as powerful as opener "Underneath the Stars," this would be the best Cure album since 1989's "Disintegration." "Underneath the Stars" recalls that album's dark grandeur, but it's suffused with a disarming romanticism that is the essential flip side to Smith's more celebrated gloom.

Unfortunately, things take a nose dive quickly thereafter. Second track, "The Only One" features a sugar-pop backing for Smith's ribald lyrics and the result is creepy instead of cute.

Things pick up a few tracks later with "Sirensong," its beautifully nagging melody pushed along by a gently rolling rhythm.

"Switch" is Smith at his most convincingly frantic, while "The Perfect Boy" is the near-perfect pop song Smith tries for and misses earlier on the album. "This. Here and Now. With You" just misses the mark.

All that can be said of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is that it's a bit less intolerable than it was in concert, although not by much.

"The Scream" is solid, but it seems as though Smith has done this sort of thing a hundred times before. Final track "It's Over" ends things on a comparably high note.

Sequencing seems haphazard, as the album never is able to sustain any momentum. What did they spend all that time doing?

Download this: "Underneath the Stars"

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