8/31/1985 Sounds
Sox Appeal The Cure 'The Head On The Door' (Fiction FIXH 11) ****
I always thought that in between days came nights, but perhaps you have to enter into the spirit of it more. Yesterday, Top Cat informs us, he got so old... and later, he's 'Lying on the floor of the night before/With a stranger lying next to me'. Sane and happy Robert Smith confidently chronicles the unfolding of his own psyche. It must be fun to be so securely insecure and consistently confused about the big bad frightening world when it wants to throw money at you and invent crimpers.
The Cure's status has been sublimated from gore-bellied gargoyles to guffawing gurus. Here is what everyone who likes The Cure is saying this summer: 'Oh, it doesn't matter that it's like New Order, you know? Because once you decide everything he does is brilliant, it's just brilliant.' This is a highly worthy critical attitude and you will clutch it to your bosom once the existential purity of 'Kyoto Song' rapes your tastebuds and lays siege to your spine.
Akin in feel and vacillation to The Glove project (only with a decent singer), there's a pervasive graceful ease to the mild idiosyncracies of 'The Blood' (faith and flamenco) and 'Six Different Ways' ('C Moon' sees stars). 'Push' is stylish, stealthy guitar grunge, 'Screw' is mock machismo. Cheeky Bob likes his job. The suspension bridge of disbelief doesn't get burned by his leviathan levity.
'Close To Me' is intimate, intrusive, and possibly the Cure track to have on the jukebox in your coffin. It makes you wish more pop stars were hip enough to stay in bed all day. Shake pillow shake.
- Chris Roberts
