Songs of a Lost World by The Cure

Hearing Robert Smith sing is like hearing a conjurer’s voice with the power to collapse time and summon forth romantic yearning so strong that a little John Hughes montage plays in your brain.

It’s a voice that, among many other things, rescued the boys of South Park from annihilation at the hands of an evil robotic Barbra Streisand. On this 14th studio album, Smith waits almost three minutes before releasing it, clarion and remarkably unchanged, midway into the opening track ‘Alone’.

The album is reminiscent of the band’s 1989 masterpiece Disintegration, but while Disintegration throbbed with the fear of turning 30, here the stakes are raised. Family bereavement on the ballad ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’, the death of love and life and maybe the end of the world on ‘Endsong’.

But what did you expect? Being post-punk Pierrots was The Cure’s cause. This is a suite of triumphantly sad majesty that somehow leaves you smiling.

There are just seven tracks here. If that sounds sprightly for The Cure, think again. All but one sail past the five-minute mark, culminating in the thunderous ten-minute ‘Endsong’.

They’re languid yet surgically precise, especially on ‘Alone’ and the Pornography-esque standout ‘Drone:Nodrone’, which boasts a magnificently bratty bass line.

The album’s cavernous sound, pummelling percussion, occasional warm synth and the passing guitar jangles recall the sonic palettes of yesteryear.

This is Robert Smith at his very best. What immeasurable delight it is to find that magic working once more, for the first time this side of the millennium.