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Doug's Music Snobbery

Come along to discover tunes, talk music and read my strong opinions.

Let's Rank All Of The Albums By The Cure!

 

Some ground rules for this one… The Cure has released a TON of material in addition to their albums. The release that it seemed EVERYONE had back in the day was Standing On A Beach with the iconic close up of the face of the old man on the cover. It’s a greatest hits collection. They also released a full box set of just b-sides, and there are other releases like Japanese Whispers and Mixed Up that are various categories of collections / EPs with some new material included. I’m not including any of that here. For the album rankings I stick to the albums. That’s kind of the rule here at Doug’s Music Snobbery with very few exceptions even as I acknowledge it’s tough to talk about The Cure’s body of work without Let’s Go To Bed, The Walk, The Lovecats, Never Enough, myriads of b-sides and so on…. So the first person who skips this paragraph to go right to the ranking and then comments that YOU FORGOT STANDING ON A BEACH will be brutally shamed in my reply. Also, if you click on the album covers it will take you to Amazon via my affiliate links if you are inclined to purchase the music. I will indeed potentially get a small commission on these sales if you do.

Got it? Let’s go!

Let’s Rank All Of The Albums By The Cure!

The Cure - The Cure - Geffen

14. The Cure (2004) This album starts off so badly you wonder what Robert Smith is trying to do here… the opener Lost is a building diatribe that is borderline unlistenable. Maybe he really was….lost? But at least it’s followed by Labyrinth - a song where Smith is….screaming again and making it also unlistenable? Listen, as much as I love this band they got wildly inconsistent in the latter half of their career. It is what it is. It’s not until the 4th track with the lead single and pleasant-enough pop song The End Of The World that we get a song that isn’t horrible. And this album could have been a complete loss if it didn’t deliver on 4 straight tracks which somehow are actually fantastic. Alt.End, (I Don’t Know What’s Going) On…, Taking Off, and Never are all really good. This could have been a great 4 song EP. The final 10 minute dirge The Promise seems like it has….promise in spots, but it’s just too noisy without any payoff. What a mess.

The Cure - Wild Mood Swings - Elektra

13. Wild Mood Swings (1996) Yeah… This album didn’t last long in my rotation at all, and admittedly I hadn’t listened to it in years. I returned to it for this piece and this time around I think it’s not that bad. I think at the time my expectations were still high after the run they had prior to Wish. Wish was disappointing for me and when Wild Mood Swings was even lesser than I kind of checked out for a minute. I never could have predicted I’d feel that way about The Cure but there I was. When they released a mariachi thing (The 13th) as the lead single I was already annoyed, so I went into this album with a bad attitude lol. Today I hear The 13th as kind of an updated whimsical Caterpillar vibe just with horns and I rather like it this time. It’s not so un-Cure like per se like I felt at the time. And so this album might not be the MOST inspired thing they’ve done but it’s still okay. Just feels a little like a by-the-numbers holding pattern overall which is an upgrade from how I felt then. Still not likely going to bring it back into my rotation.

The Cure - Wish - Elektra

12. Wish (1992) Trigger alert. I know many people (inexplicably) LOVE Wish and consider it peak Cure. It’s not. It’s average at best and good in a couple parts but that’s as far as I’ll go. Don’t try to argue with me. The opener Open isn’t bad, but “isn’t bad” is about the best you can say about much of what you hear on this LP. The lead single High is just kind of pleasant - nothing super special. The Friday I’m In Love B-Side Halo would have been a better choice frankly (assuming they had recorded it already). And speaking of Friday I’m Love……yuck. Yep I said it. Okay it’s not HORRIBLE - I guess it’s fun to a degree and I’m not against happy pop songs as a rule, but I never loved this one. My first reaction in 1992 before it became a huge hit was “How many more In Between Days / Just Like Heaven / Love Song rewrites are they going to do on consecutive albums with diminishing returns - especially mailing it in with a ‘days of the week’ cliche? And wait, now it’s a SINGLE?” Hehe… So it doesn’t sound exactly like those others but this actually has me thinking about another blog topic. Stay tuned…. Moving on, Apart is decent - moody and dark. Sounds a bit like a Disintegration outtake. From The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea is pretty cool for a couple of minutes, the problem is it goes on and on and on for 7 1/2 with the same hook and it’s not interesting enough. That kind of describes the album as a whole. Just not interesting enough. Not inspired enough. Wendy Time is lame, Doing The Unstuck is goofy, Cut is another one that should have been swapped for the more interesting B-Side Scared As You, and To Wish Impossible Things is to wish you didn’t waste your time. The closer End is a redundant droning mess with Robert Smith asking to “Please stop loving me” about 173 times - except we did halfway through this album. In between some of this subpar material are two very good songs that save it from being a total disaster, and those are Trust and the gorgeous A Letter To Elise. There was a good album here if the choices were better - oddly at least 5 of the b-sides are better than 5 of the songs that made the cut. I thought maybe listening to it for the first time in years would make me like it better with fresh ears. It didn’t. I now think Wild Mood Swings might even be better which wasn’t on my bingo card but I’ll leave them ranked this way for now.

The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys - Universal

11. Three Imaginary Boys (1979) I suppose some may be annoyed with this one being so low as well. So here’s the thing… I will happily extend my apologies to anyone who started out with The Cure in 1979, were on board with this release and looks at this as the original sound of this band. It’s just that I’ve never known any of these people. The Cure was a great band in 1979 but their best songs from that year did not appear on this album with the exception of 10:15 Saturday Night. Accuracy and Grinding Halt and the title track are cool enough I guess, but overall the album is a little primitive if you’re a fan of what came after. Killing An Arab, Jumping Someone Else’s Train, and the delightful Boys Don’t Cry are all much better songs from that year and they don’t appear here. They were ALL (wisely) included on the U.S. version of the album, the Boys Don’t Cry release which makes that a compilation album. Yes Three Imaginary Boys can be a bit charming in its rawness from a historical perspective but I don’t listen to it.

The Cure - 4:13 Dream - Geffen

10. 4:13 Dream (2008) I’m a big fan of 4:13 Dream. This was a rebound from the self-titled album and it starts off with a fantastic one-two punch with the soothing opener of Underneath The Stars and the sunny and perfect love song The Only One. And the album doesn’t let up just yet with The Reasons Why and Freakshow both being pretty good. Simon Gallup does his best Peter Hook impression on bass on The Reasons Why which is quite enjoyable - it starts off sounding like a New Order song. It wouldn’t be the first time that you hear a little overlap in styles between the instrumentation of the two bands (the classic In Between Days comes to mind as well). From there on out the album just settles into a run of pretty good Cure songs. Nothing earth-shattering but all pretty good, which is pretty good enough.

The Cure - Pornography - Elektra

9. Pornography (1982) Okay calm down. I can feel the daggers being shot at the screen as I’m typing. Yes, Pornography is a goth masterpiece. The key word here is goth. I think you have to love goth to really love Pornography. And let me clear the air here and say I too love Pornography. I do! Everything on this list from here on out is amazing. But…….Pornography for all of its power and beauty in the most dismal of depths ever recorded can still be a difficult listen. It’s not for everyone. Even when I saw them live I was really excited that they played Cold which sounds like a funeral (in a good way if that makes sense - okay I guess it doesn’t but IYKYK), but when they played One Hundred Years during the first encore I actually found myself needing it to end about 5 minutes in. It’s just a little too much. My favorite tracks on the album are A Short Term Effect, The frenetic and amazingly horrifying The Hanging Garden, A Strange Day and the aforementioned Cold. But the self titled closer is usually where I tap out when I’m listening to this album. I know the pain here is deliberate and that’s part of Pornography’s brand of catharsis - I do get that - I have plenty of love for this album. I just don’t love it more than the ones I have ahead of it.

The Cure - Bloodflowers - Polygram

8. Bloodflowers (2000) The one true masterpiece between 1989 and 2024. A burst of inspiration that didn’t appear to be consistently there for a long time. Robert Smith has referred to Bloodflowers as the third in a trilogy that includes Pornography and Disintegration. They even played all three albums on consecutive nights in Berlin in 2002 and released them as a DVD. I don’t really hear it with Pornography even though I kind of get it. It’s the goth thread I suppose. I do have heartburn ranking this as “8th” because it’s so good. And that’s the proof of how much I do love The Cure even if the band was in the wilderness for a bit. The one-two punch that opens this album is as good as it gets. Out Of This World is gorgeous and Watching Me Fall is epic. At 11:14 it’s the longest Cure song (not including the instrumental soundtrack piece Carnage Visors) and they make every note count. It’s not even a prog piece with multliple stages or anything like that, it’s just a deliberate, killer crawl and has a ton of weight even though it’s not what you’d call “heavy.” Bloodflowers feels like the album that Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Disintegration should have put them on the trajectory to make. It just took them 11 years to get there. The material is solid throughout and they don’t sound like they are reaching for The Cure playbook even though it sounds thoroughly like The Cure - that’s inspiration. The prettiest song here is Loudest Sound and the closest thing to a commerical-sounding pop song is Maybe Someday - both are fantastic. Coming Up is a foreboding and masochistic banger - this is the jam that kicks the most ass with a slightly brighter-sounding chorus where the character matter of factly explains why he does this (drugs) to himself. Robert Smith has never been addicted to drugs - he has stated that he’s done his share of experimenting here and there but has never let it become a problem. So, anyway, yes this album is a big time winner and if you missed out on later Cure you could easily hit this one and the new one and be good to go.

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds - Elektra

7. Seventeen Seconds (1980) The first big leap forward for the band. The sophomore effort is where The Cure aesthetic comes together. Seventeen Seconds sounds mysterious while being minimal with several amazing songs including maybe the greatest Cure song of all time - A Forest. Such atmosphere, such foreboding, lost in a forest all alone…that pulsing hypnotic beat, that simple dark hook…"Come closer and see…” Amazing. It’s not a perfect album per se, perfection would come on the next one, but it’s damn close and as a whole it’s really something - an overall vibe. The opening instrumental piano piece A Reflection sets the tone before launching into the fantastic Play For Today. This is the first album with long time and current member Simon Gallup, and his bass lines (and his swagger) have always been a hallmark of the band. It’s been rumored that Gallup didn’t play bass on the 2nd - 4th albums which is part of what led to tensions resulting in him leaving the band for a year or so after Pornography (it wouldn’t be the first time - he announced on facebook that he was leaving and “fed up of betrayal” in 2021 but the departure didn’t last). At Night is an early goth classic as well. Incredible that they were breaking new ground like this so early in the game - Robert Smith was still only 21 at this point. And by the way - give a listen to the track M and then listen to Nirvana’s About A Girl. I can’t find any quotes by Kurt Cobain that specifically reference The Cure as an influence, but……

The Cure - The Top - Elektra

6. The Top (1984) A glorious transitional mess of a masterpiece, and I feel like the real ones know. Casual fans around the world were certainly confused when they opened with a ripping performance of Shake Dog Shake to open their 5 song set at their Rock N Roll Hall of Fame induction. I included this album in my Top 10 Transitional Albums list. The band really couldn’t dive any lower to the depths of the human psyche after Pornography so this was a new direction right off the bat with the whimsical and delightful Caterpillar. This was the album with no Simon Gallup as well and Lol Tolhurst who had handled drums up until this point moved to keyboards while Andy Anderson joined as the drummer. My favorite track on the album is the title track closer. A monster - hypnotic and ominous. The top is a place where nobody goes - you just imagine…. Bird Mad Girl, Dressing Up, and Piggy In The Mirror are all amazing, and really there’s not a dud here at all. This album sits right in between the dark and minimal era and the era of marching into mega-stardom and my favorite line from my other piece (if I do say so myself) is that it’s “a blueprint for future Cure albums and yet it doesn’t resemble a coherent blueprint for anything at the same time, and that’s why it’s awesome.”

The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World - Capitol

5. Songs Of A Lost World (2024) Still almost hard to believe this actually happened. This album was rumored, discussed, anticipated, recorded, delayed, teased, played live - you name it - before it was finally released in 2024. Most of the recording was finished in 2019 so yes there was a pandemic in there, but that really only explains a year or two. But all good things come to those who wait right? And this is a good thing - okay an amazing thing. I don’t tend to follow tours and fan-shot iPhone video on YouTube (I HATE them - get OFF my damn lawn) to hear stuff in crappy quality from a show I didn’t attend, so the first time I heard a few of these songs was live in 2023. They opened with Alone which blew me away. Truly. It was such a moment with the long (very Cure-esque) instrumental intro. It’s gorgeous and poignant with the opening line of:

This is the end of every song that we sing
The fire burned out to ash, and the stars grown dim with tears
Cold and afraid, the ghosts of all that we've been
We toast with bitter dregs, to our emptiness

Yep - they’re back! And Robert Smith wrote and arranged everything on this album himself. The only other time he has ever done that is on the classic The Head On The Door. And it’s fine really - this is indeed his band. Now the others did play on the album so it is a band effort in performance, and the playing is inspired. Simon Gallup turns in a killer bass line on Drone:Nodrone which really sounds like classic (but not recycled) Cure, and that’s really what is so comforting about this album as a whole - it’s genuinely a band at a new peak which would seem to be against the odds about a half century in after a 16 year break. They aren’t attempting to score another In Between Days / Just Like Heaven / Love Song / Friday I’m In Love. And while 2008’s 4:13 Dream was pretty good, this “reset” seems to have been creatively healthy as opposed to picking up where they left off. He takes on real life loss as well, with a beautiful and emotional tribute to his late brother on I Can Never Say Goodbye which he has discussed openly. My other favorites are And Nothing Is Forever and the magnificent epic closer Endsong. Endsong builds and swirls adding layer upon layer of sound for almost 6 and a half minutes before Smith’s vocals begin, wondering how he got so old with no hopes or dreams left - lamenting that “it’s all gone”….and the good news (lol) is there is another album’s worth of material that is supposed to be released as another LP. Let’s hope!

The Cure - Disintegration - Universal

4. Disintegration (1989) A towering achievement to be sure and certainly an album you’ll find at the top of many Cure lists. The lush atmospheres throughout are spellbinding while still mining much melancholy and dark territory - remember this is part of the loose “trilogy” in feel with Pornography and Bloodflowers. And while I feel like Robert Smith has almost always kept his integrity intact by not writing songs deliberately for mass consumption, this album in particular is a stunning achievement in that it was their biggest selling album while sounding decidedly less commercial than what preceded and followed it. Even the singles don’t sound like singles - okay Love Song does and I guess Pictures Of You does if you cut it in half like they did for the radio edit, but Fascination Street and Lullaby not so much. For starters on Lullaby you can barely hear the vocals which are purposely whispered for a creepy-fun effect which does work - I don’t dislike it. Love Song became the highest charting hit they ever had in the U.S. at #2 which I’ve never understood. It’s very good, just a bit slight to me but oh well. And while we’re at it let’s talk about what else I don’t love about Disintegration and get that out of the way: I don’t love the title track. It’s a bit tedious. Last Dance and Homesick were presented as “bonus tracks” on the CD when this came out and for that reason MAY have influenced my view of them at the time - like they weren’t really songs for the album - and they’re both good. I like them - don’t love them. So, there are the 5 tracks out of 12 that I don’t love - over 40% of this album. But the other 7?

They’re 7 of the best Cure songs of all time, and a couple of them are in the category of best songs period of all time. This feels like a challenge to try to explain how good they are. The peak of sad, dark, ominous beauty in musical form. Swirling lush sounds and epic vibes. An aesthetic that has rarely if ever been captured by anyone else quite this way. You could say the same thing about Pornography except for the beauty part. Pornography is dark, ominous and bleak while Disintegration is dark, ominous and gorgeous. The gorgeous sets this apart and no song is more gorgeous than the aforementioned Pictures Of You. An epic and aching song of love and regret that builds and builds. Pearl Jam just unabashedly lifted some of it to put in the song Won’t Tell on their Dark Matter album last year - 35 years later. Fascination Street is another one that reveals layers the more you hear it and once you get locked into drummer Boris Williams’ beats of rat, tat tat, tat-tat, tat tat, rat, repeat… you are hooked - like a drug. Another killer Simon Gallup bass line and Smith and Porl Thompson’s guitar licks over the top and….just wow. I love that this was a single. The opener Plainsong is anything but and sets the stage with waves upon waves of beauty for 2 1/2 minutes before the subdued vocals that are just, well:

“I think it's dark, and it looks like rain,” you said
“And the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world,” you said
“And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead”
And then you smiled for a second

“I think I'm old, and I'm feeling pain,” you said
“And it's all running out like it's the end of the world,” you said
“It's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead”
And then you smiled for a second

Sometimes you make me feel
Like I'm living at the edge of the world
Like I'm living at the edge of the world
“It's just the way I smile,” you said

I mean….. c’mon. Does Robert Smith get enough credit for his lyrics? Methinks not. Closedown is similarly awash with sound and equally gorgeous, but the three remaining songs we need to focus on are first the epic back to back depths of Prayers For Rain and The Same Deep Water As You. Whoa… There have never really been two songs on an album like this. As deep and dark as anything on Pornography but way more complex and accomplished. There’s no novelty here - these are fully realized masterworks. Prayers For Rain is more immediate and unrelenting while The Same Deep Water As You tends to just stretch out unfurling and hypnotizing but the end result for both is similar. You feel like you’ve been through something when you’re done. The other song we’ll finish with here is simply entitled…Untitled. And on a given day it could be my favorite Cure song. It’s the perfect end for this album. It lifts you up just slightly from the depths you’ve been taken to. The light (but not too much) at the end of a long dark glorious trip. More amazing lyrics too… A high water mark for the band and alternative music and the fact that a handful of songs keep it from being first shouldn’t diminish the greatness that is still here.

The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me - Elektra

3. Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (1987) This is the double album that really captures all things Cure if not necessarily a big dose of (but still including some) deep, dark goth - but that’s totally okay. I guess you could call it their White Album in terms of it being an amazing double album hodge podge with songwriting contributions from different members of the band. That’s significant because Robert Smith wrote the prior album The Head On The Door completely by himself. The Cure can be many things to many people and for me goth doesn’t necessarily represent who they are. This album contains so many treasures - kind of a bigger, bolder and better realized The Top. The opener The Kiss is another in a long list of Cure songs (especially album openers) that take their time before getting to the vocals, and it rocks. Almost 4 minutes of swirling walls of guitar over a two note riff before Robert Smith bursts on the scene with a masochistic diatribe including an f-bomb and declaring “I wish you were dead!” Whoa. They mean business this time out, but then they follow it up with what would be the second single Catch - a beautiful little ditty that comes in under 3 minutes. So yeah - we’ll be all over the map on this thrill ride of emotions and styles. The singles are some of their best such as the third single and blockbuster hit Just Like Heaven with the iconic video of the band playing by the edge of a cliff - Robert Smith with his signature look - hair as big as ever. Still a gorgeous pop tune with each band member’s instruments joining as each one is introduced in the video, starting with Boris Williams on the drums. But by the 4th and final single Hot Hot Hot!!! Smith shows up in the video with short hair. Hot Hot Hot!!! is a fantastic funky number with Smith almost rapping about the three times he saw lightning strike and it’s infectious. The other single which was the lead is Why Can’t I Be You? with its big beat, big guitars, big horns and big vocals - a loud and hella-fun tune with a ton of energy. How Beautiful You Are… is the blueprint that they basically rewrote as Love Song on Disintegration but I like this one better - always have. There are some really cool slow tempo oddities on this album like If Only Tonight We Could Sleep with Lol Tolhurst playing a sitar……on keys (it’s not actually a sitar), the hypnotic and somewhat bleak epic The Snakepit, and the strange Like Cockatoos. But then there are a couple of really gorgeous ballads like A Thousand Hours and One More Time, a perfect sunny pop song The Perfect Girl and a couple of energetic bangers like Icing Sugar and Shiver and Shake. So yeah, I feel good about this one at third - there is just so much here! Great closer in Fight too.

The Cure - The Head On The Door - Elektra

2. The Head On The Door (1985) These are all tough to sort at the top and The Head On The Door could easily be #1. The two best Cure singles on one album by far are here in In Between Days and Close To Me. A perfect collection of songs all written solely by Robert Smith. Not too long, not too goth, not overwhelming, just right. In Between Days was the song my favorite record store - Alan Kovan’s Play It Again Records in Southfield, Michigan - used in its commercials for a while back in the day and it’s just such a perfect song. The best acoustic jamming on a hit you’ll ever hear. Representing the very best of everything first wave alternative music had to offer in the 80’s. Perhaps only to be topped by the signature whimsical dance-floor-filling Close To Me. “I’ve waited hours for this - I’ve made myself so sick I wish I’d stayed…..asleep today.” That beat and that hook! Instantly recognizable and inevitably stuck in your head. Smith’s most iconic vocal delivery and when the crazy horns are layered in to bring it home? Just the best - it’s impossible not to feel good listening to this song and isn’t that what the best of music should be? But the album’s greatness hardly ends there. Push and A Night Like This are also classics - Smashing Pumpkins covered A Night Like This with James Iha on vocals (as much as I love the Pumpkins I don’t know if it’s “great” but you know, respect). They actually played all 4 of these when I saw them in 2023 which made me pretty happy. Kyoto Song incorporates some Eastern influences - The Cure toured Japan in 1984 - and The Blood delves into some Flamenco to amazing effect with more awesome acoustic guitar work. Interestingly enough this LP incorporates multiple disparate styles but still comes off as more coherent than Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me does - that doesn’t make it “better” per se - just an observation. Six Different Ways is a fun and dreamy tune with a dose of whimsy that is uniquely The Cure and Robert Smith’s vocal delivery is quite endearing here. Simon Gallup is the star on The Baby Screams and Screw - the former being a great uptempo jam with a killer bass line, and Screw is a cool slab of funk. Come to think of it Gallup crushes it on the closing and wonderfully dreary Sinking as well… Another masterpiece and probably the Cure album to start with for the uninitiated.

The Cure - Faith - Elektra

1. Faith (1981) Something had to be first, and if you already know Faith well then I feel you should understand why it’s worthy. If you disagree that’s okay - I know it’s not the popular choice, but it’s absolutely the choice by some. Not that I NEED the validation, but I’m not alone here - I just know I’m not in the majority. There is no clear cut #1 with this band and I’m even second guessing myself as I’m writing this. But something has to be #1 and this is the album that takes you to a place not of this world. The achievement here is that they do it with a minimal approach, and the deliberate use of the spaces between is genius. There’s less going on here which allows each element to breathe, lilt, transport, soothe. The bass line is often the star of the show here and we’ll start with All Cats Are Grey where it has this kind of percussive and watery (?) sound that anchors a sort of….tribal hypnosis going on. Robert Smith’s voice is a bit buried in the mix and double tracked which for some reason is perfect here. It’s a perfect track, and I think it’s my favorite Cure song. If I’ve already claimed others as my favorite Cure song then so be it - I love this band. According to Google a good musical hook “can be a vocal melody, instrumental riff, or even a rhythmic pattern. A good hook is simple, repetitive, and easy to sing along to, making it stick in the listener's head.” The hook in All Cats Are Grey is exactly ONE FULL MINUTE LONG. Never knew that. I just timed it out of curiosity for this piece, and I think it could be the greatest hook ever recorded. The way it stretches out, slow and deliberate….wow. Everyone deserves to know this song. I mean it. A towering achievement. This is the second time I’ve written about The Cure on this blog and I’ve already gushed about All Cats Are Grey along with 9 other songs I’ve mentioned here. Okay moving on, let’s go back to the opener The Holy Hour which also starts with bass, and this is fun - poking around on the web I found a thread in the /bass subreddit about this album and Simon Gallup’s bass. I’m just not 100% it was all him (?) - Robert Smith may have laid down the bass tracks himself on the albums from Gallup’s first stint in the band as I’ve already mentioned. Either way it doesn’t take away from Gallup being a monster bass player, which you know if you’ve seen him live, and until I can figure out definitively otherwise I’m still going to give him credit since that’s how it’s listed in the credits for this album. If someone knows and can point me to the answer I’ll gladly update this. The second track is the frenetic killer Primary. What a jam! It’s actually thrilling - never aging and always sounding fresh with a fury they haven’t reached very often - and yet it’s firmly in the pocket of the Faith album vibe - it manages to kick total ass without being noisy. Other Voices has another incredible bouncy bass line and a great example of attention to detail with the well placed vibraslap being the perfect little add (yes that’s an affiliate link if you buy one at Amazon hehe… #sorrynotsorry). The Funeral Party is a great goth crawl - yes this album is quite gothic - and Doubt is another faster jam which sounds like a lesser Primary - the only non-essential track on the album but still decent. The album closes out with The Drowning Man and the title track which are both desolate and mesmerizing, with Faith ending on Lol Tolhurst’s drums alone, simply slowing to a halt. “Nothing left but Faith….” indeed.

I hope you enjoyed this ranking! Feel free to add your own and/or your thoughts in the comments below!

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