The Cure. Songs of a Lost World

You could have got a doctor’s appointment in the time it’s taken for the Cure’s 14^th studio album to arrive.

16 years! For a while, it seemed that there was more chance of Godot turning up.

They recorded it in 2019 with the working title Live From The Moon. Five years later, with various re-jigs, here it is.

Worth the wait? That depends if you get off on over-long numbers that roll along bereft of such trivial fripperies as memorable hooks and melodies.

These eight tracks are not so much songs as grandiose atmospheric statements. A Goth Pink Floyd without the tunes.

Naturally the songs are gloomy, but they also sound unadventurous and dull.

Alone meanders along slowly for 3 minutes 22 seconds before the lyrics kick in, painting a picture of ecological disaster – birds falling out the skies, fires turning to ash, hopes and dreams all gone…

"The stars grow dim with tears," frontman Smith wails.

Warsong is even more dismal – “nothing you can do to change the end,” he intones sombrely. The guitar solo, although submerged, is worth waiting for though.

Best is And Nothing Is Forever, with its sweet intro and orchestral pomp. Smith wrote it as a message to a friend whose death he missed:

‘In the stillness of a teardrop, as you hold me for the last time, in the dying of the light,’ he sings.

I Can Never Say Goodbye addresses the loss of his elder brother.

This is not an album for people who loved the Cure in their poppy period – there’s no Just Like Heaven, Lullaby, or Friday I’m In Love here.

It’s closer to the bleak, bloated feel of 1989’s Disintegration. But it ticks all the boxes for self-absorbed misery and clearly there’s a market for that.

Andrea Bocelli. Duets

Opening with Andrea and Sarah Brightman’s glorious Time To Say Goodbye, this 30^th anniversary album spans 32 of the Italian tenor’s career-spanning hits. We get his duets with Céline Dion, Stevie Wonder, Ed Sheeran and more, including his recent team-up with Shania Twain on her global smash From This Moment On.

Quireboys. Wardour Street.

If you love sleazy 70s rock, you will adore this exuberant comeback. The Stones echoes are inescapable – don’t play Raining Whiskey next to Honky Tonk Women. Howlin Wolf sounds like a rougher Quo. There’s country rock (Myrtle Beach) and folk-rocker No Honour Amongst Thieves is terrific. Frankie Miller and Luke Morley guest.

Green Day. American Idiot.

The Californian trio’s masterpiece. This punk rock opera, packed with energy, anger, riffs and hooks, sold more than 23 million copies, and the original 13 tracks have lost none of their impact. It was their best and biggest-selling album since their 1994 album Dookie, which went diamond, and it takes more chances. There are ballads, pianos, and the epic, multi-part nine-minute Jesus Of Suburbia includes a distinctly un-punk glockenspiel.

The title track is the most immediate, being hard-punching, tuneful pop punk with President George W. Bush in its sights. Other highlights include teen soap (Boulevard of Broken Dreams), the explosive St Jimmy and Wake Me Up When September Ends, a moving and beautiful acoustic memorial to frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's father, who died from from oesophageal cancer when he was 10. To mark the album’s 20^th anniversary, this handsome re-release comes with unheard demos, a 15-song live show and two Blu-Ray films.