The Cure have released their first new song in 16 years.
Alone premiered on Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC 6 Music radio show on Thursday morning.
The English band also announced a new album, Songs Of A Lost World, to be released on November 1.
ALONE
OUT SEPT 26 | 12PM BST | 7AM EST | 9PM AEST
EXCLUSIVE FIRST PLAY WITH #MARYANNEHOBBS @BBC6Music pic.twitter.com/CZbqle5coE— The Cure (@thecure) September 23, 2024
Advertisement
The Cure teased new music on social media leading up to its release, sharing a snippet of the song that featured their trademark layered guitars, metallic percussion and sparkling synths.
Near the end, singer Robert Smith jumped in with the gloomy lyrics: “This is the end of every song that we sing.”
“It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus,” Smith said in a press release.
“I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be… as soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem Dregs by the English poet Ernest Dowson… and that was the moment when I knew the song – and the album – were real.”
The Cure have toured in the years since their last album, 2008’s 4:13 Dream, but have yet to release a new album.
In 2019, Smith told Rolling Stone the band had recorded 19 tracks, ranging from 10-12 minutes long, and wanted to release a new album in Halloween of that year.
It did not happen.
But now, The Cure join a long list of 2024 band reunions, which so far includes everyone from Britpop stars Oasis, who ended a 15-year hiatus and, presumably, the long-held feud between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, to Linkin Park – now with a new singer, Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong – with their first performances since the 2017 death of lead singer Chester Bennington.
