Expanding the latent
arena rock sensibilities that peppered
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by slowing them down and stretching them to the breaking point,
the Cure reached the peak of their popularity with the crawling, darkly seductive
Disintegration. It's a hypnotic, mesmerizing record, comprised almost entirely of epics like the soaring, icy
"Pictures of You." The handful of
pop songs, like the concise and utterly charming
"Love Song," don't alleviate the doom-laden atmosphere.
The Cure's gloomy soundscapes have rarely sounded so alluring, however, and the songs -- from the pulsating, ominous
"Fascination Street" to the eerie, string-laced
"Lullaby" -- have rarely been so well-constructed and memorable. It's fitting that
Disintegration was their commercial breakthrough, since, in many ways, the album is the culmination of all the musical directions
the Cure were pursuing over the course of the '80s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
