Is a major announcement from The Cure on the way?
A new logo and a blackout on the band's website has left fans wondering if a new album is imminent...
By Nick Reilly
Fans of The Cure have began speculating if their anticipated fourteenth album is on the way, after a flurry of mysterious online activity earlier today.
Devotees of the Crawley goth icons have noticed that the band’s website appears to be entirely wiped, save for a new logo which features a lowercase “the” and “CURE” in capitals, written in a typewriter style font.
The new logo is also the profile picture of the band’s social media channels, while the option for fans to sign up to their mailing list suggests that an announcement could be on the way.
It’s entirely possible that the announcement could be the band’s first album since 2008’s 4:13 Dream. The long-gestating project has been teased by frontman Robert Smith across various interviews in recent years.
Or indeed, albums plural. In 2022, Smith said the group had recorded two albums which were poles apart.
The first, titled Songs of the Lost World, was described by Smith as “upbeat”, while the other was described as “relentless doom and gloom…the doomiest thing we’ve ever done.”
He added of the first record later that year: “It’ll be worth the wait. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done, but then I would say that. I’m not doing an Oasis when I say that, ‘IT’S THE BEST FOOKIN’ ALBUM’. A lot of the songs are difficult to sing, and that’s why it’s taken me a while.”
They’ve also been debuting new songs thought to be from the album in recent years too, notably the emotionally charged ‘A Fragile Thing’ at a show in Italy and a further five tracks including ‘Alone’ and the doom-laden ‘Endsong’ at a Wembley Arena show in December 2022.
It remains to be seen if the announcement is both albums, one, or indeed something entirely unrelated.
In other Cure news, the group’s keyboardist Roger O’Donnell revealed late last month that he has spent the past year fighting “a very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma,” but added he is now doing “fine and the prognosis is amazing.”
O’Donnell — who joined the Cure in 1987, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2019, and performed live on the Cure’s North American tour last year before then-unspecified “health reasons” forced him to miss the band’s Latin American tour in November 2023 — opened up about his own cancer battle in an effort to encourage fans to get tested.
“Cancer CAN be beaten but if you are diagnosed early enough you stand a way better chance, so all I have to say is go GET TESTED, if you have the faintest thought you may have symptoms go and get checked out,” O’ Donnell wrote.
“I’m fine and the prognosis is amazing. The mad axe murderer knocked on the door and we didn’t answer.”