Disintegration
- Zone: Surface (level 1 of 5)
- Genre: Rock, Gothic rock
- Mood: bleak, vast, mournful
- Sound: layered guitars, lush synthesizers, long songs, reverb-heavy
Disintegration is the album where The Cure committed fully to a slow, dense, deliberately bleak sound. Robert Smith recorded it with David M. Allen at Hook End Manor in Oxfordshire, after the band demoed 32 songs at drummer Boris Williams’s home, and it was meant to recreate the atmosphere of the previous album Pornography. Synthesisers and keyboards run throughout, with slabs of synth carrying “Pictures of You”, slow droning guitars, and heavy flanging, delay and backwards tape on “Prayers for Rain”. On the title track Smith’s lead guitar is buried in the mix and his voice is distorted with extra treatments. Several pieces run past seven minutes, and the album is a defining record of gothic rock and dark wave.
Track list
- Plainsong
- Pictures of You
- Closedown
- Lovesong
- Last Dance
- Lullaby
- Fascination Street
- Prayers for Rain
- The Same Deep Water as You
- Disintegration
- Homesick
- Untitled