The Cure’s Robert Smith says new album is a ‘sore point’

Robert Smith is unsure about the Cure’s upcoming album, 4:14 Scream, the band’s first LP in six years. Smith said he is barely “convinced” that the record is worthwhile. “[This is] the second half of what is an effectively an album that came out in 2008,” Smith explained to Xfm. Like the 2008 album 4:13 Dream, these songs were recorded with a Cure lineup featuring Smith, bassist Simon Gallup, drummer Jason Cooper and guitarist Porl Thompson. Thompson no longer plays with the band; the roster that performed at a Teenage Cancer Trust show at Royal Albert Hall on 29 March featured guitarist Reeves Gabrels and keyboardist Roger O’Donnell.

“[The album] is a bit of a sore point, really, to be honest, amongst this current lineup,” Smith said. “We’re in a weird predicament in that … [4:14 Scream] was made by a band that no longer exists.”

Originally, 4:13 and 4:14 were meant to be a double album. But in 2012 Smith told NME:”[I was] worn down by the fucking idiots around me at the time. I should have stuck to my guns, released a double. It would have sold the same, and it would not make any difference to anyone except it would have been a better piece of art.”

The Cure frotnman now says that 4:14 wasn’t truly complete until the past 18 months: “I just never sang it because I couldn’t be bothered,” he told Xfm. “I just didn’t think the words were good enough.” He has since rewritten those lyrics, and said the Cure will likely put it out this year, “in that summer ‘dead-air’ period for albums”.

Meanwhile, the Cure’s current lineup plan to make their own new album, something “that’s really different to anything else we’ve done”. But don’t hold your breath: “I’m very bad at planning long term,” Smith said. “I’m at an age where I’m enjoying what I’m doing … [and] I don’t feel such a strong urge to beat people over the head with new stuff.”

Source: The Guardian