Now considered the band’s most venerated work, Disintegration’s 12 tracks might roam the darkest of thematic forests but, with its soul-touching arrangements and atypical approach to guitar, it offers fathomless musical rewards. Disintegration became the band’s unexpected commercial watermark.

Rather than rejecting this more darkly toned, musically animated record, the wider public now mirrored the enthusiasm of The Cure’s dedicated fanbase. Upon its release in May 1989, Smith and his bandmates were bowled over by the response to Disintegration. Image: Jordi Vidal / Redferns This time it’s forever The Bass VI was output through an early 80s Peavey Ultra head and 4×12 cab, with the mids turned down completely, a half-raised bass and the treble cranked. Smith’s often undervalued guitar tone was critical to Disintegration’s pulsing atmosphere. The Bass VI also serves to contradict Gallup’s driving basslines, especially on Pictures of You. You can hear it in the downcast lead riff of Lullaby, the heart-rending pain of Lovesong’s melancholic drive, and in The Same Deep Water As You’s troubled manoeuvring. The smoothness of the Bass VI’s low-frequency tone is the secret behind the velvety character of Smith’s most sumptuous parts. Smith used a National Newport Val-Pro 88 and, most notably on Disintegration, a Fender Bass VI baritone guitar. Thompson largely relied on hollowbody Gibson ES-335s to craft frenetic chordal sweeps and often dogged strumming patterns, and was able to whip his sequences into volatile intensity, as heard towards the end of Fascination Street. Roger O’Donnell manned the synths and keyboards, while Thompson and Smith handled guitar. Image: Pete Still / Redfernsįollowing the firing of drummer and founding member Lol Tolhurst due to issues with alcoholism, the refined incarnation of The Cure that produced Disintegration featured Boris Williams on drums and percussion, alongside Gallup on bass. It’s The Cure’s version of sampling, really.” “It can be nice to go from a chorus back to a verse but have the same part come in on top of it. “I work out parts that work all the way through a song,” Smith told Guitar Player. Then there are the spiralling licks of Last Dance and Homesick, descending motifs that bounce around the perimeter of their respective song’s walls. Fascination Street kicks off with bubbling squalls beneath a delay-soaked arpeggio with gloomy intent. The symmetrical guitar lines of Prayers for Rain operate in simpatico with each other, navigating their own routes through the musical architecture. Often these contrasting parts work to cloud the musical landscape, obfuscating melodies and heightening tension. So what do you do? After you have an album that’s No.1, what do you do? Do you do more of the same?”Īs the record develops, Smith’s fitful interplay with additional guitar lines, many of which come courtesy of expressive guitarist Pearl Thompson, develops into a prominent musical texture. “For the first time I really felt the whole thing was going to stop, because I couldn’t see where we were going to go.” Smith told Rolling Stone.

During the 1980s, a smartly written salvo of expertly crafted singles had seen the band welcomed into the mainstream, and the brighter hues of The Cure’s 1985 LP The Head on the Door and 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me led to an identity crisis for the crown prince of goth. Nearing his 30th birthday, Smith reflected on a decade that had seen his teenage goth-rock outfit The Cure rise to modest fame and strengthen a devoted core of eyeliner-daubed, backcomb-haired fans. READ MORE: Metronomy – Small World review: Joe Mount dares to be an optimist in the band’s brightest record in years.Neither option seemed particularly attractive to Robert Smith.

While many artists are content to churn out music-as-product, aiming squarely at the record-buying public, others wither and retreat from the limelight, never to be seen again. But often outside influences and the overwhelming pressure to subsist in a commercial marketplace corrodes their original creative personality. Most musicians embark on their careers with well-defined intentions.

Cure disintegration live