The Cure return with their thirteenth studio album 4:13 Dream, an album that took almost four years to complete, which makes it that much more disappointing. 4:13 Dream is one of those albums that sounds like it may have so much potential, starting from the first second the music sets in with “Underneath The Stars”, a song that sounds most familiar to earlier Cure material, yet falls flat on its face as time progresses.
“Underneath The Stars” opens with the bands accustomed changeling chimes, creating a dreamlike, spacey ambience that is beautifully comparable to “Disintegrations” album opener “Plainsong.”The problem with “Underneath The Stars” is that it creates this false hope for the rest of 4:13 Dream. The following song, “Only One” was the bands first released single off of 4:13 Dream, and is certainly the bands most upbeat song to date.
Smith plainly cries out“I love what you do to my heart, it’s the best, oh yeah”, sounding more like Hillary Duff rather then a pioneer of the music industry.
On “Reasons Why”, Porl Thompson laces the track with a power chord driven rhythm that cries “pop rock,” while Smith moans “I won’t beg to hang you up about my love of life, if you promise not to sing about the reasons why.” Come again?
4:13 Dream is The Cure’s most thorough musical attempt at recognizable, simple pop music, (possibly being influenced by Robert Smith’s interest for emo pop stars like Fall Out Boy,) and it works. Unfortunately, Smith seems to of forgotten how to pen anything with any kind of depth.
4:13 Dream drags on, never picking up much motion until about the eleventh track on “Sleep When I’m Dead.” “Sleep When I’m Dead” is definitely a brighter moment for 4:13 Dream, holding the energy to please an arena filled crowd, while staying loyal to the purest of Cure fans.
Smith has too much to accomplish with his short amount of time on earth, convincingly singing “Sleep when I’m dead, you angels, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I said,” sounding like a musician with no future plans of throwing in the towel anytime soon.
The album closes with “It’s Over” unsurprisingly, a fittingly bland way to close a mediocre piece of work. Maybe Smith should think twice about throwing in that towel. Upon finishing a listen of 4:13 Dream, the first thing that you will want to do is pop in Faith or Disintegration, guaranteed.
**. / ***** 2.5 out of 5
(Archived from 11/3/08)
Posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm Posted in Reviews |
