The Cure, a British gothic rock band with a long history of radio hits and critically-acclaimed albums like “Disintegration” and “Wish,” has released their 16th studio album after 16 years on hiatus. This album feels more gloomy and sorrowful than the other albums before but also feels like one of their old albums, mostly “Disintegration,” which will come up a lot.

Their return began with the release of their single “Alone,” the album’s opening track. Just like in Disintegration, it is a long, instrumental ballad until the end. This is a signature style of song creation for the Cure and one of their best skills. Alone feels like the intro to an old PlayStation game waiting for you to hit start. 

The lyrics at the end are good, but they delve too deeply into their old music to attract new fans. Just like I said before, it feels like Disintegration again, and while I liked that album, I wanted something new.

Before the album’s release, they released one more single called, “A Fragile Thing.” While it was released in 2024, it was first presented at a live show in Italy on Nov. 4, 2022.  Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, said, “It’s the ‘love song’ of the album, but it’s not a love song like ‘Lovesong’ (a famous track on Disintegration) is a love song … . It’s about how love is the most enduring of emotions, the most powerful of emotions, incredibly resilient … and yet at the same time incredibly fragile.” 

My favorite track on this album was “Warsong.” Most of the song is instrumental, but I like that because it sounds like a dark feeling of a horrible thing that had happened, which helps promote the lyrics. The song talks about Smith questioning why he fights with his wife and how he fears that it might end because “we are born for war.” 

A few days after its release, the album climbed to fifth place for best album of the year on Rate Your Music. It currently sits at fifth just below “brat” by Charli xcx. Overall, I enjoyed this album and am excited for more music in the coming future.  The album is 49 minutes and 19 seconds long with eight songs. I would give it a 7 out of 10.