from the LP Disintegration Fiction Records, 1989The term ‘epic’, when used as an adjective, means “impressive by virtue of greatness in size, scope, or heroism”; without any doubt at all, that word simply pales in comparison to the harrowing monolith of power & gloom which is Disintegration. It almost seems cliché, but while attempting to eschew the rising stardom that had surprised the band following Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, they actually wound up composing what many Cure fans consider to be their magnum opus, hurtling them even farther into the rock star galaxy, never again able to go backwards in either popularity or scope; where Pornography felt akin to the bubonic plague (I really mean that in the best possible way, because I love that album too), this was an ethereal fog that played amidst the mossy bracken in the moors, deceptively attractive yet sinister & detached. Bob gave an interview with Mojo magazine a few years back and affirmed the long-held rumor about their rampant LSD use around the time of this album’s recording, essentially locking themselves in the mansion that served as the recording studio and proceeding to gobble down ‘60s-era amounts of the substance---frankly, knowing that, it’s mind-blowing they got everything to sound this good! “Untitled” was the last track on the LP, a wistful bookend about what could have been, a theme that’s never far from anyone’s heart, “…pushing my face in the memory of you again, but I never know if it's real, never know how I wanted to feel; never quite said what I wanted to say to you, never quite managed the words to explain to you, never quite knew how to make them believable, and now the time has gone, another time undone…” That accordion just slays me every damn time!
