The Cure Tease Epic New ‘Songs of a Lost World’ Track ‘Endsong’

After 16 years of waiting for new music from The Cure, the beloved goth rock godheads have going from zero to the end in quick succession. After dropping the broody “Alone” last week, the Robert Smith-fronted band pulled the curtain back a bit more on Monday morning (Sept. 30) with a tantalizing tease of the even more morose “Endsong.”

The 15-second instrumental bit of the track previewed on the band’s Instagram Story was missing Smith’s iconic haunting melancholy vocals, but it leans hard into the English band’s signature turbulent songcraft via layers of chiming guitars, churning drums and an overall foreboding vibe.

Smith talked about the overall feel of their upcoming Songs of a Lost World studio album in a video interview posted on Friday in which the singer said he doesn’t recall there being an “official beginning” to the sessions for their 14th studio album. “Because it’s been kind of drifting in and out of my life for like an awful long time,” said Smith of the long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s 4:13 Dream.

“I mean, if I have one regret it’s that I said anything at all about it in 2019,” he added of an interview he did five years ago in which he blamed himself for “going back over and redoing them [the songs]” endlessly during a time when he was grieving the losses of his mother, father and brother.

He said he shouldn’t have talked about the album at all back then because the band had just started working on it at that point. “There are various points where I thought, ‘I think we’re gonna make a new album’… and then… for various reasons other things have happened and the idea’s been sort of pushed back.” During the course of the band’s nearly half-century career, Smith said the key to completing a record has been him nailing down both the opening and closing song on a project.

“[If I do that] I think that the album’s halfway done,” he said. “That’s the key for an album.” As proof, after releasing “Alone,” Smith said it was “the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus.”

“Alone” and “Endsong” will appear on Songs of a Lost World, which is due out on Nov. 1 via Capitol Records. The album, whose full track list has not yet been announced, was produced by Smith and Paul Corkett, who also co-produced 2000’s Bloodflowers. It features contributions from Smith, Simon Gallup (bass), Jason Cooper (drums), Reeves Gabriel (guitar) and Roger O’Donnell (keyboards); the latter longtime member recently announced that he’d been diagnosed with rare and “aggressive” blood cancer a year ago, but added that “I’m fine and the prognosis is amazing”.

Listen to Smith talk about the new album below.