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The Cure

Wild Mood Swings - Fiction 1996

Tracks: 1. Want / 2. Club America / 3. This Is a Lie / 4. The 13th / 5. Strange Attraction / 6. Mint Car / 7. Jupiter Crash / 8. Round & Round & Round / 9. Gone! / 10. Numb / 11. Return / 12. Trap / 13. Treasure / 14. Bare / 15. It Used to Be Me*

Comments:

I was not really captured by this Cure album before I reached track 7, the quiet and wistful "Jupiter Crash", which to me still is the absolute highlight of the album. The songs has an unusually long intro, and you may at first expect it to be an instrumental. After about two minutes, happily this turns out not be to be the case, but rather one of their most moving songs, both melodically and lyrically.

After discovering "Jupiter Crash", I obviously had to check out on whether there was something I missed at the first listen, and as always there obviously was. The waltzing "This is a Lie", with a fine string arrangement is one of the album's nice and quiet numbers. "The 13th" with its distinctive Latin-beat actually reminds me of one of my big favorites, Alex Chilton.

"Strange Attraction", with its reggae beat one of the most catchy numbers and it was indeed released on single. The other singles were "Mint Car" and "Gone", featuring a funky, jazzy, trumpet arrangement. Neither of these numbers, however, belong to my real favorites.

More ska horns you will find on "Return"; a little too much, though, for my taste. Then rather the slightly Suede-like rocker "Trap" which brings The Cure back to a simpler expression.

The album ends with two subdued tracks, "Treasure" and "Just" - maybe not numbers that at first seem particularly remarkable, but especially "Treasure" with great violins have evolved to be another one of my big favorites.

A conclusion could be that this is an album that wants explore a whole lot of different styles and arrangements, and not all of it works equally well. But with numbers like "Jupiter Crash", "Treasure", "This is a Lie" and "Strange Attraction" you can't go completely wrong with "Wild Mood Swings".

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