By coincidence (or perhaps not given that it was Halloween weekend), the most eagerly-anticipated releases of 2024, by both original wave and current wave post-punk artists, were released simultaneously recently, with The Cure’s Songs Of A Lost World and Mayflower Madame’s Insight coming out on the same day.
Both bands’ genial frontmen had been affected by bereavement in the preparation of their respective new albums, with Robert Smith grieving over the passing of his brother and his parents, with Trond Fagernes and his partner trying to come to terms with the devastating tragic stillbirth of their daughter Marion, to whom Insight is dedicated.
Insight opens with a beautiful and understated tribute to Marion, a wonderful lullaby lament where Fagernes wistfully reflects on how things might have been (“For all she could have been, For all she should have been”), the song’s title (Ocean of Bitterness) hinting not only at the depth and breadth of anger which the author must feel at being cheated out of the opportunity to see and experience his cherished daughter growing up, but also of the sublime melodic melancholy dark light psychgaze soundscapes with which his musical project has become synonymous. The song’s simple, syncopated gothic riff is played on an acoustic guitar, reflecting the muted and sombre lyrical tone, and is a model of efficiency, weighing in at less than three minutes, a perfect start to an album which is once again a very rewarding if at times emotionally challenging listen.
This contrasts significantly with Alone, the opener of The Cure’s LP, where the bloated, repetitive and strangely disjointed (from a production perspective, with the various instruments failing to gel properly) lugubrious instrumental intro builds for well over three minutes before the familiar pained Robert Smith vocal is heard for the first time.
Smith spoke in a recent interview about the difficulties he has faced in penning lyrics for the many soundscapes/works-in-progress which he has composed over the past decade, which may explain the lengthy and occasionally tedious introductions to many of the Songs Of A Lost World, with album closer (and undoubted highlight) Endsong already over the six minute mark by the time Smith first exercises his trademark tonsils.
The epic song durations, funereal pace and introspective lyrical content have inevitably but deservedly drawn contrasts with past gloomy classic albums like Faith and Disintegration, as opposed to more upbeat Cure hits like Lovecats and Friday, I’m In Love, and the difference between Songs Of A Lost World and its ‘immediate’ predecessor could not be more striking.
2008’s 4:13 Dream’s set of thirteen quirky, mostly short, raw and often energetically inventive songs found little favour amongst critics and fans alike (peaking at a dismal 33 in the UK album charts, for example), whereas the eight more immediate and familiar tracks of Songs Of A Lost World saw the LP go straight to the top of the UK album chart amidst heightened media interest and critical acclaim.
Smith may have struggled for inspiration for subject matter for the album, finally writing mainly about suddenly finding himself alienated and in an older generation (“I’m outside in the dark, wondering how I got so old”, “I know that my world is grown old”, “My weary dance with age” etc), a theme his sibling’s untimely demise (chronicled in the touching I Can Never Say Goodbye) may have highlighted, and one which (given their age demographic) many long-term fans of the band will find appealing, but the album also seems somewhat devoid of truly genuine musical creativity: many of the crowd-pleasing tracks have the same slightly prog-rock overextended and self-indulgent feel, with the soothing, unchallenging and cosy familiarity of, say, Pachelbel’s Canon, slow-burning and rather stodgy MOR epics seemingly designed to be played comfortably on stage by the ageing band in their legendarily overlong gigs. On the one occasion when the tempo is switched up, on Drone:Nodrone, both the bouncy, “baggy” beat (in the style of EMF’s Unbelievable) and debutant Reeves Gabrels’ much-criticised wah-wah riffs (too intrusive for the more conservative longterm fans, apparently) are strikingly retro and highly reminiscent of 1990’s standalone single Never Enough.
The turgid and uninspired arrangements which often bedevil Songs Of A Lost World are all the more apparent when contrasted with the intricate, intriguing and inventive song structures on Mayflower Madame’s Insight. The stunning interplay between guitar (Rune Overby), bass (Fagernes himself) and synths (Kenneth Eknes), and the shuffling motorik drumbeat (Ola J. Kyrkjeeide) make for a refreshing yet intense mix, topped with Fagernes’ low-key but angst-ridden vocal.
On the previous two albums issued during the Norwegian project’s decade-plus history (Observed In A Dream and Prepared For A Nightmare), the lyrical focus had been on the darker places to which the mind wanders during the moments between sleep and consciousness, a time now sadly and understandably also haunted for Fagernes by a very sharp and agonising sense of loss, an inevitably omnipresent if often unspoken factor throughout the album, which is at its most harrowing and poignant in the downbeat closer Insight For The Mourning Hours.
Sonically, part in thanks to the sharp mixing and mastering skills of Maurizio Baggio (best-known for his groundbreaking work with the late, lamented The Soft Moon), Fagernes’ songs retain from the projects’s first two albums the dreamy, cinematic grandeur with underlying emotional turmoil of Echo and The Bunnymen’s masterpiece Ocean Rain, with at turns elements of lo-fi, shoegaze and dark psych to add some thrilling spice to the already potent musical mix and retain the listener’s full attention.
The trademark Mayflower Madame sound is showcased to particularly good effect on the album’s original pair of teaser tracks, A Foretold Ecstasy and Paint It All In Blue, which had understandably ramped up expectations prior to Insight’s release. Whilst there isn’t a bad track on the album, to be pedantically critical, there is arguably an overall lack of variety of pace in Insight’s internal dynamics. Nevertheless, the new LP stands not only as a fitting and emotional tribute to a much-loved and much-missed daughter, but as a modern masterpiece of the ever-evolving post-punk genre, demonstrating a daring blend of subtlety, vigour and ingenuity that were, ironically, once The Cure’s stock-in-trade.
Whilst Songs Of A Lost World would in some ways serve as a generically appropriate finale for The Cure’s stellar career, one can only hope that Smith delivers on the hint that it is in fact the first of a trilogy of individually very different albums, and that the subsequent instalments will deviate from the pleasant but over-safe palette of sounds demonstrated on the new release.
Mayflower Madame’s album is available via Bandcamp here
The Cure’s album is available here
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