I'd Like To Be Sponsored By NASA
Select Magazine
May 1996
THE CURE
Wild Mood Swings
FICTION
Just as you don't expect Cologne cathedral to reconstruct itself overnight
in the mode of the Pompidou Centre, or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy
to metamorphose into a Tom Clancy thriller, so perhaps it's a forlorn hope
that The Cure might've abandoned their gothic curlicues.
The trusty ways of the sombre chord progression and wan navel contemplation
have served Robert Smith well through pop's ebbs and flows. Now, four years
after the 'Wish' album, they return, locked in the kind of protracted
Iyrical adolescence that makes even the less-than juvenescent cast of Happy
Days look like people hell bent on leaving their teenage years behind. As
El Bobbo assays on 'Gone!', "Wake up feeling blue/Everything that could be
wrong is, including you/Black clouds and rain and pain in your head/AII you
want to do is stay in bed. History shows that the legion fans of this
Status Quo of solipsism will continue to flock to such weighty
considerations, like goths to a flame.
To be fair, 'Wild Mood Swings' isn't all ponderous alabaster swoon.
'Return' and 'MintCar' are effervescent, joyous sorts slightly more pallid
takes on 'Inbetween Days'. Single 'The 13th' is heralded as
"Mariachi-influenced", but its Latin trumpet fanfares sound like no one so
much as Haircut 100. But, these moments are outweighed by melancholy. A
telling clue to this band's appeal lies in 'Strange Attraction': "l
answered her/A Christmas card in sepia. . ." The Cure remain the equivalent
of a tastefully archaic Paperchase card and, similarly, seem set to keep
selling on the high street.
2/5 Soundbite: "Stock up on goth-balls now."
Last Revised: Monday, 15-May-2006 15:00:08 CDT
maintained by: Verdugo