How the Cure, back after 16 years, made the best rock album of 2024

nypost.com:

rock music has been dead.But just as the Day of the Dead is upon us, the Cure has brought the genre back to life.The goth gods — who had been left for dead after not releasing a new studio LP since 2008’s “4:13 Dream” — have come back after 16 long years with the best rock album of 2024: “Songs of a Lost World,” which fittingly dropped the day after Halloween.

It’s Friday, and I’m in love with the Cure all over again.“Songs of a Lost World” is easily the Cure’s best album since 1992’s “Wish” — which included their hit “Friday I’m in Love” — but maybe even since their 1989 masterpiece “Disintegration.”That’s saying a whole helluva lot for a band that didn’t owe us anything else — and could’ve easily coasted along on the well-deserved Rock & Roll Hall of Fame props they earned in 2019.

After all, like many legendary rock bands of a certain age, they were still selling out arenas on the nostalgic strength of their golden oldies.On “Songs of a Lost World,” these alt-rock icons have staged the most unlikely revivals just when they had nothing to lose.The eight-track “Songs” is a revelation in an era where real albums don’t exist anymore.

There are no obvious “singles” here — the kind that saw the Cure hit the Top 40 with “Just Like Heaven,” “Lovesong” and “Friday I’m in Love.”But it’s an album that allows you to get lost in its otherworld for 49 minutes that won’t have you simply skipping to the next track.It’s an album that is meant — make that, demands — to be experienced from start to finish.With its orchestral grandeur — these dense, painstakingly detailed arrangements might make you understand why it took 16 years — “Songs” plays like a symphony in eight movements, taking you on a journey that begins and ends with.