Album Details

• Artist: The Cure
• Album: 4:13 Dream
• Label: Geffen
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2008-11-18

As seasoned as any band can hope to be and just as intensely focused upon, The Cure have seemingly always been the indie band that teeters the closest on the line between the stadiums and the bar dives, the limelight and the underground. A history rich in diversity in both recording musicians and songwriting directions, the band is something Robert Smith can hang his hat on for numerous reasons. Perhaps most impressive is the band's continued drive into not exactly new but nonetheless newer territories all these years after carving their niche. 4:13 Dream has been described as the hardest album for Smith to write yet, and a certain amount of that conflict (in whatever way it manifested itself prior) can be picked up on here, but the name of the game for the modern Cure seems to be a safehouse of easily-digested indie-pop warblings, spiced up by brief moments of truly free songwriting and bogged down by not-so-brief dullness. 

To be certain, few bands have been more effectively different and willing to try different things musically, but in his old(er) age it's become apparent Robert Smith still has the hunger, but lacks the youthful view of an only somewhat-jaded pre-rockstar struggling songwriter. These ingredients created a certain amount of creativity that gave us masterpieces like Pornography and Disintegration. To be fair, they get the first half of the album done just about perfectly. "Underneath The Stars" is the sort of downtrodden, sullen ballad that I personally consider to be their strongest type of attraction, so it's opening the album leaves nothing but high hopes. A roughly hewn guitar pattern attempts to distract from rolling drum crescendos, all the while throbbing beneath the seminal basswork we've all come to expect from The Cure and Simon Gallup. "Only One" has been in rotation for a long while now and most fans will know it and either love or loathe it. It doesn't quite hit the mark that "End of the World" did previously as a single, but it works. "Reasons Why" actually works a bit better, and "Freakshow" is a big jolt of groove and boogie-woogie for a band who used to hang their hat on such compositions. The remainder of the album is a struggle between so-so's and provacative experimentals that are just as hit-or-miss (really big fan of "Switch", very chaotic and spacey). 

Pros: Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, half an album's worth of memorable material. 

Cons: Robert Smith's lyrics (they're just too cheesy to me), half an album's worth of so-so material. 

One thing to remember; The Cure's so-so stuff is pretty decent, so there's not much wrong with 4:13 Dream except that it feels more like another in a series of similar discs for a band that could once give you records that redefined your outlook on music as a whole. Things change, sure, but your best work will always be your ultimate competitor. Cure fans should own it, and those approaching as virgins should look back deeper into one of the most interesting catalogs out there. 

User Reviews and Comments

on 2008-12-17 mikeborgia Said:

THis is classic Cure and I'm glad they haven't changed much at all. it wouldn't be the cure any other way.

I Hyped 4:13 Dream on Everhype and gave it 97% which I think is fairly accurate.

http://www.everhype.com/hyper/thebitch?X=S2068

I wouldnt mind getting some opinions on it . If you get on there, rate me a 5 & request friendship.
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