The Cure confirm details of Songs Of A Lost World album and release Alone single

26 September 2024, 13:30

Robert Smith and co's first album in 16 years will be released on 1st November 2024 - hear the first track Alone.

The Cure have confirmed details of their long-awaited new album, Songs Of A Lost World.

The legendary alternative rock band's first album in 16 years will be released on 1st November 2024 through Fiction/Polydor and marks their first new material since 2008's 4:13 Dream.

The first single, Alone, is available to stream now. The track opened every date on the band's Shows Of A Lost World tour in 2022 and 2023.

Robert Smith says of Alone: "It's the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus. I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be...

"As soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem Dregs by the English poet Ernest Dowson... and that was the moment when I knew the song - and the album - were real."

Hear the new track Alone here:

The Cure - Alone (Official Lyric Video)

Songs Of A Lost World will be released as a single LP, a Miles Showell Abbey Road half-speed master double-LP, a marble-coloured vinyl single LP from indie stores and HMV, a web store exclusive white vinyl LP, double Cassette, CD, a deluxe CD package with a Blu-ray featuring an instrumental version of the record and a Dolby Atmos mix of the album, and digital formats.

The album is available to pre-order now via the band's official website.

The full track listing will be revealed over the coming weeks, but other songs which were played on the 2022 tour are expected to form part of the album, including A Fragile Thing, I Can Never Say Goodbye, And Nothing Is Forever and the finale Endsong.

Recorded at Rockfield studios in Wales, the album was written and arrange by Robert Smith, produced and mixed by Smith Paul Corkett and performed by The Cure who comprise Smith, Simon Gallup (bass), Jason Cooper (drums), Roger O'Donnell (keyboards) and Reeves Gabrels (guitar),

Smith created the sleeve concept, and Andy Vella, who has worked with The Cure since 1981's Faith LP, handled the album's art and design. The cover features a photograph of a 1975 sculpture by Janez Pirnat called Bagatelle.

Smith added: "Key I think in the history of the band is if I know what the opening song is and I know what the closing song is, I think that the album's halfway done you know, those two things are key for an album."

The album has been the subject of a long teaser campaign, which saw a set of black postcards sent to random fans and journalists, plus the arrival of a brand new Cure website, www.songsofalost.world, which asked users to enter a code: when the number 1/11/2024 is entered (via the all-important Roman numerals), fans could sign up for more information, which includes a brand new Cure WhatsApp account!

There was also the appearance of cryptic posters in locations such as the Railway Inn in Crawley, where The Cure played their early gigs, and the Tower in Smith's birthplace of Blackpool.

The Cure's studio album discography:

• Three Imaginary Boys (11th May 1979)
• Seventeen Seconds (18th April 1980)
• Faith (18th April 1981)
• Pornography (4th May 1982)
• The Top (4th May 1984)
• The Head On The Door (30th August 1985)
• Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (26th May 1987)
• Disintegration (2nd May 1989)
• Wish (21st April 1992)
• Wild Mood Swings (6th May 1996)
• Bloodflowers (14th February 2000)
• The Cure (28th June 2004)
• 4:13 Dream (27th October 2008)
• Songs Of A Lost World (1st November 2024)

In August 2019, Smith told the Los Angeles Times: “I keep going back over and redoing them, which is silly. At some point, I have to say that’s it."

He admitted the sound of the album had been affected by family bereavements: “It’s very much on the darker side of the spectrum. I lost my mother and my father and my brother recently, and obviously it had an effect on me.

“It’ll be worth the wait. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done, but then I would say that. A lot of the songs are difficult to sing, and that’s why it’s taken me a while."

In July 2020, keyboard player Roger O'Donnell told Classic Pop magazine: "Four years ago, I said to Robert, 'We have to make one more record. It has to be the most intense, saddest, most dramatic and most emotional record we've ever made, and then we can just walk away from it.' He agreed. Listening to the demos, it is that record. I think everybody will be happy with it.

"The problem is, when you've got a back catalogue like The Cure, it's a lot to live up to. Robert has said, 'If The Cure say any more, it had better be important and it had better be f***ing good'. It is, it's going to be an amazing record. I just suggest a little patience."

Speaking to The Sunday Times in June 2021, Smith claimed that this may be the very last Cure album: “The new stuff is very emotional. It’s 10 years of life distilled into a couple of hours of intense stuff. I can’t think we’ll ever do anything else. I definitely can’t do this again.”