The chance to discuss a new single by The Cure last cropped up sixteen years ago. There might never be another. Such is the atmosphere one inhabits when approaching ‘Alone’, released on 26 September to promote the album “Songs of a Lost World.”

It’s nearly seven daunting minutes long, and begins with a very long, indulgent instrumental intro that is washed in languorous jangling guitars. It’s iconically The Cure, an absolutely trademark sound. Then the first appearance, at last, of Robert Smith himself with a typically ironic, heartbreaking and heartfelt first line “This is the end…”

People have commented how unchanged his voice is since The Cure first arrived and began enthralling fans in the late Seventies. I’d argue now there is something more, a veneer of something reflective, introspective, experienced, even resigned. There’s a new depth to his delivery that seems tinged with a new type of sadness, that I suspect is sourced in the personal losses Smith has experienced – and the fatigue of more than forty years performing with the band that has often been a catalyst of great personal stress for the singer.

‘Alone’ is how The Cure stand as well, having outlasted all of their contemporaries at the uppermost echelon of classic ‘Goth’ bands as we know them. Sure, the members of Bauhaus, the Banshees or the Sisters still perform live now and then, but only The Cure are still a formidable performing and recording force in the contemporary goth scene.

It is that legacy that means the inevitable comparisons to their classic goth-rock albums like “Pornography” or “Disintegration” arise, and the imagery and themes so far introduced seem to suggest it’s in a similar vein. It’s sparse and yet complex, classic and yet revolutionary. It’s a ray of grey hope in a world dying of promise. I am enthralled by it, and hope it only continues to influence the sound of the new album.

But, we will have to wait until after Halloween – aptly enough – before we can see what “Songs of a Lost World” will contribute, sixteen years after the last release by The Cure, and quite possibly their last ever.

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