Hindered by the all-encompassing involvement of producer Ross Robinson, the band loses part of its sonic identity, but at rare moments manages to cast a spell.
“The album The Cure is probably the one I like the least. I don’t like certain passages, and in my view, it’s the only album that doesn’t work.” Interviewed by English journalist Matt Everitt in 2024, Robert Smith does not mince his words about the album released twenty years earlier. The shaggy-haired frontman nevertheless saves Before Three.
His band performed The End of the World extensively on stage up to 2019, so this single likely earned them a certain indulgence as well. How can one explain such a lack of affection for this twelfth official chapter? Perhaps due to difficult recording sessions, or the involvement of Ross Robinson, nicknamed the “godfather of nu metal,” who helped mold the sound of groups like Korn, At the Drive-In and Slipknot.
Dreams and Nightmares Entwined
The result remains heavily colored by the American’s vision, who asked the musicians to record in the studio as if they were playing live — a method the band had not attempted since Seventeen Seconds in 1980. Fifteen tracks appear on the final list (including the bonus This Morning) and five more are left out by Robert Smith, who deems them too depressing — a paradox in itself.
The Cure thus finds its habits upended, but could it have been otherwise when partnering with an external collaborator with such a résumé? Confined beside them in a London studio from 2003 to early 2004, Ross Robinson favors a direct approach, placing the guitars at the forefront at the expense of synthesizers.
The colorful cover, drawings made by Robert Smith’s nieces and nephews on the theme of dreams and nightmares, reflects this engaging raw-art side. It is difficult to understand why the album The Cure remains a maligned entry in their discography when listening to hypnotic songs such as Labyrinth and its psychedelic undertones, the prologue Lost and the ultra-melodic Alt.End which ends with particularly soothing words from the tortured soul of Robert Smith: “All my dreams have become reality.”
