Though frontman Robert Smith might protest easy categorization, The Cure are without a doubt one of the seminal gothic rock bands of all time. Pop-twinged and radio friendly hits like “Friday I’m in Love” or “Just Like Heaven” exist alongside the kind of haunting, angst-filled odes like “One Hundred Years” or “Lullaby” that helped define the goth rock phenomenon. “Alone,” the legendary band’s first new release in well over a decade and the lead single from their upcoming album Songs of a Lost World, sees the band return to that latter sort of peak brooding form after a considerable hiatus.

“Alone” immediately evokes the lengthy, moody masterpieces of the band’s past (i.e “Plainsong,” “Pictures of You,” and the like). Massive, gated drums punctuate a throaty, coarsely distorted bassline and matching, shrill lead guitar. In true Cure fashion, these darker elements are contrasted with melancholy, crystalline synth strings. Despite this being their first public offering in years, the band have made no concessions to an industry that at present trends toward brevity and short attention spans – it’s a full three minutes and some change before Robert Smith appears front and center, just as wistful and yearning sounding as ever. The end result is a pristine, fresh revisitation of The Cure of yore, and sounds as though could have been pulled right off an album like Wish or Disintegration.

It’s patently ironic that “Alone,” in spite of being The Cure’s first new statement into a decade-plus void of inactivity, is primarily a rumination on emptiness and endings. Yet for all the time that’s passed, The Cure certainly don’t sound like they’re anywhere near ready to hang it up. Smith spends the song’s duration begging answers of heady concepts like time, and youth – “Where did it go?” In The Cure’s case, at the very least, it would seem the answer to that question is: “nowhere.”

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