Originally due in early 2007 and then bumped to the fall, the new Cure album will now not see the light of day until next spring, according to a Geffen spokesperson.
Frontman Robert Smith is still recording material for the planned double-disc set but ran into a time crunch with an impending North American tour on the books. That outing begins Sept. 13 in Tampa, Fla. The band is presently in Australia for three shows, beginning tonight (Aug. 10) in Sydney.
“Whenever I think we’re finishing it, it becomes something else,” Smith told Billboard in late June. “We recorded all 33 backing tracks with scratch vocals last April, May and June. Then I took a break to kind of knock the words into shape and figure out which of these songs are going to make the album.”
From there, Smith got sidetracked by work on the Cure live DVD “Festival 2005,” but returned to the album material in March. “We’ve now reached the point where I’ve lost track of the number of songs we’ve got,” he said. “There’s an A-list of 30 songs on the wall.”
Tracks due to make the cut include “Lusting Here in Your Mind” (“It sounds suspiciously like heavy rock to me,” Smith said), “The Hungry Ghost,” “The Perfect Boy,” “Christmas Without You” (“That’s not a very happy song,” he said) and “Please Come Home.”
“There are songs about relationships, the material world, politics and religion. They’re very upfront and dynamic,” said Smith of the new songs. “People will be surprised how stripped-down and in-your-face the record is.”
