In 1982, alcohol and drugs intruded into the final installment of the group’s cold wave trilogy, injecting a merciless unease into the souls of adolescents, teetering between a death drive and a life force.
Following Seventeen Seconds and Faith, Pornography, released in May 1982, closes (in beauty) what is commonly referred to as The Cure’s “cold trilogy.” While it may not be the terrifying black masterpiece that some fans a touch fervently celebrate online, this third chapter nonetheless establishes itself as a major opus, a crucial milestone in the band’s rich discography and a seminal example of a genre then in its infancy: cold wave – the frigid branch of the new wave. Cold, indeed, is the apt title of one of the eight tracks (and not the least) contained in this cathartically naked album.
Confronted with increasingly menacing inner demons (the specter of suicide looming), against which alcohol and various drugs give the illusion of protection, Robert Smith lays bare here, violently torn between death drive and life drive, exposing a profound malaise. Free from any trace of complacency, the album, though rotted by doubt, never slips into depressive languor nor into nihilistic fury.
Obsessive Sonic Spirals
A work by a trio that, despite internal tensions, appears tightly knit to the extreme, Pornography is defined throughout by an impeccable tonal accuracy and a ruthless dryness of its sound – a sound to which Phil Thornalley, stepping in for Mike Hedges as producer, injects intense nuances, at once phantom-like and metallic.
From One Hundred Years, a splendid opening track whose obsessive spirals unfold over nearly seven minutes, an elevated tension takes hold and persists without interruption through to the closing and highly percussion-driven title track, unquestionably the most radically singular (in a tone close to industrial music). Beneath the apparent coldness, a burning fire runs through Pornography: delivering the quintessence of The Cure’s early style, the album elevates post-adolescent spleen to a blazing degree.
